Monday morning I started for Fort Selden on the Rio Grande, nearly three
hundred miles away. We had a different type of stage coach, a small
affair, more like a carriage, and drawn by two horses. Some eight or ten
miles out of Santa Fe we almost literally dropped off into a canon that
widened out into more of a valley as we continued our journey until we
reached the Rio Grande some distance above Albuquerque. This town was at
that time a straggling Mexican village of adobe houses along the east
bank of the river. It is now a city of considerable size on the east
side, with modern improvements and is a division point on the Santa Fe
railway and a town of commercial importance.
The river was disappointing. I expected something bigger, and it wound
around from one side of the valley to the other as though in doubt as to
the best way to go. The valley was interesting because of its being
occupied by an altogether different type of Indians. We had left the
plains Indian at Trinidad and from there to Santa Fe had seen only
Mexicans with a fair proportion of Americans whose business interests
were in the country. The Plains Indian, Cheyennes, Commanches, and
Kiowas and Arapahoes, were nomadic and warlike. Here was an agricultural
people who lived in little villages called pueblos, a name also attached
to the Indians themselves. Their villages were located at convenient
distances apart and both men and women went to the fields to work. The
land was divided off into little patches separated by irrigating
ditches, called asacies, and there were no fences or lines to show
individual ownership. It was seemingly a community interest, a kind of
socialism. The Pueblo Isletta was the capital and principal town and was
the place of meeting for the disposal of important questions of interest
to the tribe, and for the observance of such religious services as was
their wont. The hoe was the principal agricultural implement, both for
making ditches and for cultivating the land. The people seemed to be
kindly disposed, and in every way a contrast to the Plains Indian whose
women do the work while the men do the hunting and fighting. They enter
their houses by way of the roof, climbing a ladder from the ground to
the roof and pulling the ladder up after them, then descending by way of
an opening in the room to the room or rooms below. No doors, and only
little peep-holes for windows, sometimes covered with a thin cloth of
muslin. I suppose this was done in the first place as a protection
against the Mountain Indians (Utes and Navajos) who in early times
raided the valley and carried off anything they could lay their hands
on. The valley was sparsely wooded except here and there when we would
come to great groves or boscas as they were called, of immense
cotton-wood trees which were very beautiful. The valley as described
above was the same all the way down to Fort Selden.
After leaving the Pueblo settlements we came to a country occupied
nearly altogether by Mexicans. The commercial interests were conducted
by so-called foreigners: Americans, Germans and Jews, the latter
predominating, but the population was principally Mexican. Stock raising
and farming were the principal industries, the latter in a very
primitive way. They had no modern farm implements, such as plows,
harrows, wagons, etc., and only such improved tools as they could
construct from the scant material at hand. I saw at one place a man
driving a yoke of cattle attached to what appeared to be the limb of a
tree with a projecting prong entering the ground, and at the other end,
which bent up something like a handle, was another man holding it. They
were going back and forth making little ditches or furrows but not
turning the ground over as our plows do. It looked primitive indeed and
reminded me of a picture I saw in an almanac when a kid, representing
the Egyptian plowing. Stock business was more promising. A good many
cattle were reported on the range and I was told the sheep numbered many
thousands scattered all along the mountain range to the west. Soccorro
was the principal town, typically Mexican, but a place of some business
importance. There were small villages at frequent intervals all the way
to Paraja, the last town near the river before crossing the Jornada del
Muerto (or "Journey of Death" in Spanish) which extends from Paraja
(pronounced Paraha, j having the sound of h in Spanish) to Fort Selden,
nearly one hundred miles across, a desert properly named and that has
some pitiful associations in my memory. It was what was known as the
Apache Indian country and grewsome stories are related concerning it.
Death by Indians, famishing for want of water, etc., etc. I must tell a
legend concerning it and the desert country to the east and north. Near
Paraja and rising bluff from the river's edge is a high bit of mountain,
hardly worth the name of range, on the top of which lying in a recumbent
position is as perfect profile of a face and bust as you could imagine.
You get a fine view of it from Fort Craig and for a great distance to
the northwest and northeast. The legend is that a friar, Christobal by
name, and for whom the mountain or range was named, was traveling
through the country on his work for the souls of men when he perished
from thirst. Some supernatural agency brought his body to this mountain
top where it hardened into stone and remains to this day a monument
commemorating a tragedy, and a land mark and guide to the weary and
thirsty traveler pointing the way to where he may find water.
We left Paraja and the river and valley at night after a good supper,
having supplied ourselves with water enough for the trip, expecting to
get breakfast at a place about half-way across, called the Alaman
(Allemand) literally meaning "Dutchman" where it was reported a German
had been found some years before, killed and scalped by Indians. There
had been repeated efforts made to find water on this desert. General
Pope when a young officer of the service had spent a large amount of
government money digging for water. Finally a man by the name of Martin,
a Scotchman, who furnished the meat supply at Fort Selden, was so
persistent with the commanding officer in asserting his ability to find
water, that he was furnished a body of soldiers as an escort and guard
and commissary supplies for the undertaking. He had been working
faithfully and persistently for some months. He had also put some adobe
rooms and had them furnished, his hauling his water supply from a spring
in a canon some six or eight miles away and had built an adobe wall
around his camp. He had also put some adobe rooms and had them
furnished, his wife being an important assistant in the undertaking, and
he was still sinking his well deeper and expressing an abiding faith in
the result. It must be a glorious feeling to be vindicated in such an
undertaking. It was rumored along the overland route that Jack Martin
had found water but not enough, and upon our arrival we found that he
not only had water but had an abundance of it and our stage was the
first to arrive after he struck it. After eating a late breakfast, which
was a very good one, we started for Fort Selden still some fifty miles
away. This part of the trip was uneventful as we only stopped once to
feed and water the team, having carried the necessary supplies with us.
We arrived at Fort Selden in the evening. All the way from Santa Fe down
I frequently noticed little piles of stone by the wayside, sometimes
with little hand-made wooden crosses standing up in the center marking
the place where someone had met a violent death, maybe by Indians or
maybe at the hands of some renegade Mexicans. It is the custom among the
Mexican people in passing to toss another stone on the pile and in this
way some of them became of considerable size, the size of the pile
indicating in a way the time that had elapsed since the murder had been
committed.
I reported to the commanding officer at the post and the following day
was assigned to duty. By invitation I took dinner with one of the
officers the evening of my arrival. Among other good things we had a
choice roast of beef which they informed me was from their very choice
and only milk cow. It seems the herders were not sufficiently on guard
and this animal had become separated from the herd but in rounding up
the herd in the evening it was discovered that this particular cow had
an Indian arrow in her side and on examination it was thought best to
kill her. The good woman did not have much appetite for beef but grieved
over the loss of her favorite cow. There was some small timber and
underbrush along the streams affording a good hiding place for sneaking
Apaches who might be disposed to commit depredations. It was the rule at
this post that when the officers' wives wanted to take an airing to
send an escort along with the ambulance as a protection against the
Indians.
It was a two company post and the duties of the medical officer were
light; so much so as to become a little monotonous, but was sometimes
varied by a trip to Las Cruces or Messilla, some fifteen or eighteen
miles distant. These towns were at one time separated by the river but
some years before an unusual flood had swept down the valley and the
river had made a new channel leaving the towns close neighbors. Even in
those days they were places of some importance.
While stationed at this post I made my first acquaintance with gambling.
It did not take me long to learn that it was the universal custom in the
country. The Sutler's or Post Trader's store was a favorite resort for
those who indulged in the various games. I remember an old man camping
not far from the post who made it his business. He remained there for
some time and in conversation one day I expressed my surprise at the
universal custom and he informed me that he had rather bet his money on
Monte than loan it out at ten per cent interest, and yet his dress and
camping outfit did not indicate a man of fortune.
One of the most interesting incidents of my experience here was one
Sunday morning after inspection when a group of officers were standing
out on the parade grounds talking on various subjects when one of them
was attracted by something at our feet and called attention to it. Upon
closer investigation we discovered it to be the outlines of a human
skull, the top of which had been worn away by the trampling of many feet
over the parade ground. The post commander ordered the dirt removed from
around it and thus unearthed a complete human skeleton except where the
top of the head had been worn away. It was in a sitting position with
the knees flexed up close to the chin but the bones crumbled upon being
exposed to the air. There was no evidence of shroud or other covering to
the body. What race of people buried their dead that way? How long had
it been in its resting place?
This post at that time was about seven hundred miles from the railroad.
I doubt if there is a place in the United States today outside of Alaska
or our insular possession where one could go and be seven hundred miles
from a railroad.
Along in the first part of May of that year I received orders from the
chief medical officer of the district to exchange places with Dr.
Seguin, post surgeon at Fort Craig. General Grover was the commanding
officer at Fort Craig and was considered a good deal of a Martinet. As
explained to me by Doctor Seguin, it seems that Mrs. Grover wanted
something from the hospital which the doctor declined to send her and
General Grover thereupon ordered it sent. The doctor disobeyed the order
and the matter was carried to district headquarters and probably higher
up for it involved the question of military discipline and also the
rights of medical officers under army regulations. It is well enough
here to say that the medical corps is a corps to itself, distinct from
any other branch of the service, and orders come through the medical
officers from the surgeon general down to the divisions; departments and
districts, and yet at the military post the commanding officer is
supposed to be "monarch of all he surveys" as you see there was a chance
for controversy. Any way it was settled by Doctor Seguin being ordered
to Fort Selden to take my place and I to his place at Fort Craig.
General Grover was a severe looking man past middle age, and had seen
service on the frontier before the Civil War. He was a strict
disciplinarian and held himself aloof from everything around. I have
seen him walking down the line of officers' quarters straight as an
arrow, maybe with hands clasped behind his back and an orderly walking
the proper distance behind. He never entered an officer's quarters but
if he wanted anything he would send his orderly to the officer with "the
General's compliments and would like to see you." The officer then
walked out to where the general was standing and at the proper distance
stopped, stood at attention and saluted and waited for such
communications as the general would make. He then saluted again and
returned to his quarters and the general went on his way.
Mrs. Grover was confined soon after my arrival at the post and gave
birth to a daughter. When the general was called in to see the new
arrival he merely looked at it, gave a grunt, or "huh," and then turned
and walked out. Mrs. Grover was the most queenly looking woman I ever
saw; a magnificent physique; a commanding presence and a dignified and
gracious manner. She seemed to possess all the qualities my imagination
had conjured up as befitting a queen. She was the daughter of Dr. Austin
Flint, Sr., whom I mentioned in an earlier chapter, and a sister of Dr.
Austin Flint, Jr., the eminent physiologist. I was frequently called to
their quarters to see the baby, not I thought, that it needed anything,
but that the mother wanted someone to talk with. The general was civil
enough to me but never cordial. I think it was not his nature to be so.
He invited me occasionally to go with him in his carriage to places away
from the post, say to Paraja some twelve miles away, or perhaps just for
a ride, a courtesy he never extended to other officers of the post. On
these little excursions I found that the general was an interesting
talker, mostly with reference to his experiences on the frontier before
the war. The war itself and the army since the war was never mentioned
that I remember. He had been a major general during the war and was now
a colonel and it was thought by most of the officers that he felt
humiliated by being assigned to a negro regiment, the twenty-fourth
infantry. I was invited to their quarters one morning for breakfast and
maybe one or two other meals during the summer but as I remember them
now they were rather formal and uninteresting.
Fort Craig was a walled fort, made so in early days as a protection
against Indians. It was typical of most of the posts at which I served
in being built in the form of a square. The parade ground being a square
plot varying in size at different posts, around which are located the
buildings. The officers occupying one side of the square; the barracks
being directly opposite and the commissary and quarter master department
generally occupying one side and the commanding officer's quarters and
post headquarters and adjutant's office occupying the other side. At
Fort Craig just outside of these buildings was an adobe wall about ten
feet high. Next to the guardhouse was an opening large enough for wagons
to enter the parade ground with heavy gates to close at night, and there
were some small openings in the wall for other purposes, one being near
the hospital. The walls of the buildings were of adobe with heavy
timbers across to support the roof of dirt. The floors were what the
Mexicans called "Jaspa" (pronounced Haspa), a kind of cement made of
gypsum or lime sulphate which is found in great beds through a great
portion of New Mexico. It is quarried or blasted out, heated to drive
out the water or crystalization, then ground into a powder and when
mixed with sand and water makes a pretty fair quality of cement. It was
used altogether in the floors for the military posts along the Rio
Grande.
The water supply at Fort Craig was obtained from the Rio Grande river
and there were times about June when the snows melted in the mountains
that it answered very well to a description I once read of the Missouri
river water, "Too thick to drink and too thin to cultivate." This was a
great bother to us during the summer rise for it was persistent for more
than a month. I conceived the idea of making a filter by making a good
sized ball of jaspa and charcoal which I held together by mixing a
little cotton batting carefully in the mortar and kneading it into a
very stiff paste. After it hardened I bored a hole in the ball and
inserted a rubber tube and then put the ball in a "Tanaja," a large
ungalvanized earthen jar holding eight or ten gallons of the muddy
water. This jar was put in an army blanket and was swung in the hallway.
The jar being porous would let enough water through to keep the blanket
damp, which cooled the water. By swinging another tanaja just below the
first and having it blanketed in the same way, and having a rubber tube
connecting the two, I had a filter that furnished clear, sparkling, cool
water. I put one in the hospital and they became quite the vogue at the
post.
The wood supply was brought from the mountains some thirty miles away.
Trains comprising several wagons would be sent out in charge of a
wagonmaster with men enough to load them promptly and by starting early
and returning late they sometimes made the round trip in two days, but
generally they were three days out.
For a month or more I was in the officers' mess, consisting only of
single men or those whose families were away. The meals were rather
stately affairs and to me seemed a little tinged with the ridiculous in
that far-away place. There was a colored man standing behind each
officer's chair dressed in the proper toggery to do his duty and to give
him every attention. I never saw any more perfect service at any hotel
and the table was the best the commissary department and the surrounding
country would provide.
Prices outside the commissary were much higher than we had then in Iowa.
Eggs were fifty cents a dozen; butter a dollar and a quarter a pound. I
paid these prices regularly when I started my own mess. I had what was
called a student's lamp in those days and paid five dollars a gallon for
coal oil, as it was then called. Of course that was before oil tanks
were known and it was carried across the plains in barrels, maybe in hot
weather, and on slow moving ox trains, being months on the way. The
evaporation would necessarily be very great, and by the time the
sutler's store got its percent of profit (probably one hundred percent
or more) one could easily see that fifty cent oil in Iowa could easily
be five dollars in New Mexico. Some years later at Fort McRae, further
down the river, we got it for two dollars and a half per gallon by
sending a five gallon can to Santa Fe to be filled.
Thinking that I was a fixture at Fort Craig for some time I wrote my
wife and asked her to join me after her visit in the East was over. In
view of her coming I started a mess of my own and had a little colored
drummer boy detailed as servant and cook. He was as black as night and I
called him Sandy. To start with I laid in a pretty good supply of
commissaries, among them ten pounds of cut loaf sugar. I had my first
dinner on Saturday and the following Monday morning I asked Sandy if
anything was needed. "Yas sah, Doctor, we needs some moah sugar." Why
Sandy, I said, we got ten pounds of each kind on Saturday, which kind do
you want? "We needs some moah cut loaf sugar, sah," he said. What, cut
loaf sugar? "Yas sah, Doctor, it takes a powerful sight 'o sugar for
deserts." Well all right Sandy, I said, I'll see about it. I thought it
was going pretty fast for only two dinners so I stopped on my way back
from the hospital at Major Sweet's quarters and asked Mrs. Sweet how
much cut loaf sugar they used. She was bright and quick as a flash, and
wished to know, while trying to look serious, why I asked such a
question. Finally she broke out into a jolly rippling laugh and said, "I
know what's the matter, Sandy has been carrying your sugar off to the
laundresses." I told Sandy when I returned to my quarters that I did not
mind his having all the sugar he wanted himself but I did not want to
feed all the laundresses at the post on cut loaf sugar. He did better
afterwards but I still think the laundresses got some sugar.
There is no other part of the country so far as I know where skunks were
so plentiful as in New Mexico. They were a nuisance at all the posts at
which I served in that territory, but if possible were worse at Fort
Craig than elsewhere. One evening I had gone to the post trader's to get
my mail and upon my return I found the odor in my quarters so pronounced
that I investigated and found that Sandy had killed a skunk in the
kitchen. He explained by saying that he had tried to drive it out and
could not do so and that he had killed it. I told him to open up all the
windows and doors and scrub the kitchen floor and I went back to the
sutler's store in self protection. I did not return until late when I
found the odor worse than ever and Sandy explained the matter this time
by saying another skunk came in and had made its way into my bed-room
and got under the wardrobe and he could not get it out and was compelled
to kill it. This he did by punching it to death. The result can be
imagined, but not very well described. I slept on a cot in the front
room for some time afterwards and found hunting and out-door exercise
more interesting than remaining in my quarters.
The sand storms at Fort Craig were something to remember, or rather I
should say impossible to forget. They are simply a straight wind blowing
with terrific force and loaded with fine sand and dust and very fine
gravel. I remember particularly one that came up one day when the
steward and I were making out the monthly reports at the hospital. The
windows and doors were closed and everything made as snug as possible,
yet when the storm was over one made tracks when walking across the
floor as visible as he would have made walking along a sandy highway. It
was a serious matter to be out in one of them, for unless the face was
covered one would suffer severely from the stinging sand and fine
gravel, and everything a short distance away was shut out from sight.
There are also some pleasant things to remember of my experience at this
post. The hunting, particularly of wild fowl, was very good, the ducks
remaining late in the spring and returning early in the fall. The
sunsets were beautiful beyond my power of description. It was my first
summer in a rarified atmosphere and I imagined at times I could see
objects moving along the mountain range some thirty miles away. I
remember one evening when Doctor Seguin was visiting a few days with me
on his return from Fort Selden to New York, having left the service, we
were out for a walk together and were up on a little mound just west of
the post as the sun went down and his attention was called to the
beautiful cloud effects. He remarked that he had never seen anything
more beautiful in Italy. The doctor was a Frenchman by birth; his father
was a medical man of distinction, and while most of his life had been
spent in this country he had traveled extensively abroad and his
education, particularly in medicine, had been acquired in Europe. He was
now returning to New York to take up his work as a lecturer on nervous
diseases in the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
While the doctor was visiting with me we went up to San Marcial to
witness the games on St. John's day, June 24th. San Marcial was at that
time a small straggling Mexican village of one street with adobe houses
on each side and all told maybe had one hundred inhabitants. We did not
go into any of the houses and only witnessed one game of any interest,
it was a rough-and-tumble affair and excited great interest among the
Mexicans. A rooster with its legs tied would be buried in a little mound
of sand in the middle of the street, leaving only its head and neck
sticking above the mound. The game was for the horsemen to form in line
some distance up the street and come at full speed swooping down from
the saddle, grab the chicken by the head, and then the battle was on for
the chicken. The possessor of the unfortunate chicken would strike out
over adobe walls and across irrigating ditches, anywhere to get out of
the way of his pursuers and when at last he would be cornered, or
surrounded, a battle royal would follow. I could not determine how the
matter was decided but when the game was over they would come back and
repeat the performance. There were many misses in their efforts to pick
up the rooster, but a few of the contestants were more expert than the
others and several succeeded in swinging down and retrieving the rooster
from the mound of sand. We left while the game was still in progress. In
all the games I witnessed among the Mexicans there appeared the element
of cruelty in some form or other.
During the summer of 1869 while stationed at this post I went to Paraja
to see the Penitentes parade. I don't know why it was called a parade
for it was an exhibition of cruelty that I have never at any other time
in my life seen equaled. It was supposed to be a religious ceremony but
consisted of a procession in single file of those who had committed
great crimes or sins. The one in front carried a great wooden cross, the
cross-bar of which rested on his neck and shoulders, he carrying it in a
somewhat stooped position. It was of an enormous size, the cross-bar
extending as I estimated it, at least eight feet in length and the stem
in proportion. It had been made of dry cotton-wood logs and hewn out to
probably eight or ten inches square and was a crude looking affair, but
was probably not as heavy as it looked. The one bearing this cross took
the lead and was naked to the waist and from there down wore only a
single cotton garment, pants-like in shape, but very full, something
like a skirt, and all those following were dressed in a similar way. All
were bare-footed and there were probably twenty or more of them. Each
carried thongs with which he struck the man in front of him on the bare
back, all acting in something like uniformity as to time and repeating
in unison and in a drone like voice something in Spanish that I could
not understand. Before the procession ended the backs of most of the
participants were notably bloody and some of them very much so. Paraja
is located literally in a bed of sand and I wondered how they could
stand it that hot August day in their bare feet and the bloody work of
the thongs left the impression on my mind of being a most brutal
performance. But they were sincere and no doubt believed they were
atoning for sins committed. What kind of a God is it who would accept
such an atonment or approve of its offering? The faces of the
participants were mostly of a brutal type and they looked as though they
were capable of committing almost any crime. This exhibition did not
impress me as in any way religious but on the contrary as exceedingly
barbarious and superstitious.
By act of Congress during the winter of 1868 and 1869 the army was
ordered reduced, which to me was a serious matter as it rendered
improbable any convening of a medical board for examination of medical
officers for promotion, at least for some years to come. As I remember
such line officers as wished to resign could do so with the privilege of
a year's additional pay, and enough others would be dropped from the
service to bring the number down to the required standard, also with a
year's additional pay. The only difference being that of resigning or
being dropped from the service. Quite a number of line officers
preferred resigning. Among those who did so was Lieutenant Page of the
twenty-fourth infantry at Fort Craig. He proposed selling me his cow and
I proposed trading him my pistol for it. He thought the matter over and
said that he proposed locating on a farm in Missouri and the pistol
might come very handy, so we made the exchange. He came to visit me at
Girard, Kansas, after I had quit the service and gave me a farther
history of the pistol. He had missed a good deal of corn from his fields
and watched for the thieves and shot one of them quite seriously. The
matter got into the courts and being so soon after the War the factional
feeling had not died out, and the long litigation that followed almost
bankrupted Mr. Page, rather a disreputable record for a pistol to make,
but I imagine that there have been comparatively few occasions where
pistols were used in personal encounters, that it would not have been
better if they had never been made.
I expected my wife in September. In the meantime Captain Lawson had
returned from a leave of absence and joined my mess until his wife
should come. Just before I expected my wife to start on her trip to join
me, a command came up from Texas, an exchange of regiments had been
ordered. The fifteenth infantry went to the Department of the Missouri,
and the twenty-fourth infantry to the Department of Texas, and I was
ordered to accompany a part of the fifteenth infantry from Fort Craig to
Fort Wingate, New Mex. I at once wrote my wife to await developments.
She had already started and got as far as Fort Wallace, Kans., near the
terminus of the railroad when word reached her from Fort Wingate that I
was to go with one company of the fifteenth infantry to Fort Dodge,
Kans., and she could meet me at Fort Lyon, Colo., which would be on my
way to Fort Dodge.
[Illustration: THE OLD GOVERNOR'S PALACE
Santa Fe, New Mexico, as it appeared in 1869. Army Headquarters for the
District of New Mexico was located at the far end of this building.]