The trip from Santa Fe to Fort Stanton was not an attractive one. There
was not much snow and no mountains to cross but the route was
uninhabited and dreary, consisting of alternate stretches of timber and
alkali lands, until we neared Fort Stanton when the timber improved in
quality, and the country generally was more inviting. We reached Fort
Stanton on the second of January and were at once assigned to
comfortable quarters which we occupied the following day but stayed with
a brother officer's family the first night. I found Fort Stanton a very
desirable post at which to serve. Major Clendenning was in command and
Doctor Fitch was post surgeon until my arrival. The fort and military
reservation were beautifully located on what was then the Mescalero
Apache reservation in the White mountains, El Capitan being the nearest
peak, and on a little stream called Rio Bonito, (pretty little river)
and it was an exceptionally pretty stream. Anywhere east it would have
been called a creek or branch. It was a mountain stream of clear cold
water and the post was supplied with water through a ditch taken out
from the river at some distance above the post, and carried to the
highest point on the parade ground, and from there distributed each way
around the parade ground and then taken to the corral and the stables
lower down the valley. In front of each officer's quarters a barrel was
sunk in the ditch to a depth where the water would almost reach the top
of the staves and the up and down stream sides were cut away as low as
the bottom of the ditch, thus allowing the water to pass through freely.
Small trout were often dipped up in the water taken from these barrels.
Fort Stanton is located at an altitude of a little over six thousand
feet and is not only a beautiful location but is a very healthy post. It
was abandoned long ago as a military post but is still owned by the
government and used as a sanitarium for tuberculosis. I have visited it
since it was converted in to a sanitarium, and for cleanliness and
general sanitary conditions it did not compare with the post when used
for military purposes.
In those days game was plentiful in the mountains and the duck shooting
along the pretty little river was exceptionally good.
What was afterwards known as the Lincoln County War was just then in its
incipiency. Considerable shooting was done between the cattle and sheep
men, and the death of a sheepherder--always a Mexican--or a cattleman,
was of frequent occurrence. Word came to the post one evening, that a
deputy sheriff had been shot while attempting to settle some difficulty
between the cattle and the sheep men, and a surgeon was requested to go
to Lincoln, the county seat some ten miles down the valley to see him.
Major Clendenning sent for me and explained the matter, but said if he
were in my place he would not go, as those Mexicans would just as leave
take a shot at me as anybody else. He said, however, that if I decided
to go I should have the ambulance and any help I needed. I decided no
help was necessary, but took the ambulance and driver and went to
Lincoln that night. Mr. Mills, the deputy sheriff who had been shot had
a half-brother at the post by the name of Stanley and I had heard the
story of one of their shooting experiences when little fellows. They
were practising with pistols and had become so expert that one day they
tried the experiment of holding something out in one hand for the other
to shoot at, but as this was not exciting enough, one of them extended
his arm and pointed out his index finger and said to the other: "See if
you can clip the end of that." He clipped a little too much for I had
seen Stanley's hand and the finger was off at the first joint from the
end. "You fool, you, you took too much. Now give me a chance." The other
being willing to play fair, extended his finger the same way and lost
the same amount of finger. This was the story, and I was curious to see
Mr. Mills' hand which I took good care to observe while dressing his
wound and found it almost exactly like Stanley's. Mr. Mills' wound was
by a shot that entered near the heart, struck a rib and did not enter
the plural cavity, but followed the rib around and came out on the back
and was not a very serious wound.
The Sutler's store at Fort Stanton was up-stream some distance and just
around the point of a little canon that led down to the river. A path
from the corner of the parade ground led up to the store but there was
only a narrow space between the point of the canon and the ditch that
supplied the post with water. There was also a bridge across the ditch
at the Sutler's store, for the convenience of getting in and taking out
goods. One dark night I had been up to the store and started home, and
after going a short distance, I concluded I had crossed the ditch on the
bridge, instead of going along the narrow strip between the ditch and
canon. To save time and retracing of steps I concluded to jump into the
ditch. I knew it was wide and required a good jump but I found that
instead of jumping the ditch, I had jumped off the bluff into the canon.
Fortunately it had been made a dumping ground for chips and trash from
the wood-yard, and I landed on this trash and rolled the balance of the
way to the bottom of the canon among the rocks, probably twenty-five or
thirty feet. My first thought was that I was seriously hurt, but after
groaning a while and finding no bones broken, I got up and felt my way
out at the top of the canon near the Sutler's store. I was very sore for
a few days but no serious injuries resulted.
In March of this year Captain Fechet (pronounced Fe-sha, accent on the
last syllable), with his troop of cavalry, was ordered to go over on the
Jornada del Muerto, and try to find a shorter route across that desert
from Fort Stanton to Fort Selden, and I was sent along. We took the
usual route to Fort McRae, where I again met Dr. Lyons, the post
surgeon, whom I had visited at this point when I was post surgeon at
Fort Craig in 1869. We found the doctor at dinner when we arrived. The
cloth was spread at one end of the table and just beyond the cloth, at
the farther end, was a human skull, with the necessary instruments,
which the doctor had been dissecting. It struck me as a rather strange
mixture of diet and scientific investigation. It is hardly necessary to
say that the doctor was not a married man, for no woman would stand for
that sort of table decoration, but would probably prefer a bunch of
flowers as a center-piece for the table. Some unfortunate had been
fished out of the river, and no relations having been found, the body
was considered of service for a better knowledge of anatomy.
From Fort McRae we went to the Aleman, or as it was better known, Jack
Martin's, where we stayed over night, and from there we went to Fort
Selden and remained several days. While there the captain and I made a
trip to Las Cruces where we remained over night, and had a very pleasant
evening with some Catholic priests, where we were cordially received and
entertained. On our return to Fort Selden we again took up the march to
Fort Stanton but did not leave the beaten track either going or coming.
We had taken some half-dozen Mescalero Apache Indians along with us as
guides and scouts, but I could never see that we accomplished anything
by the trip, or that we made any effort to do so.
Along about the first of April I received a suit of clothes from Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, that I had ordered the previous September upon my
return from the summer camp on the Rio Grande. It had not occurred to me
that I might have changed some in physique, but when I got the clothes I
found that I could only wear the pants by putting a V-shape in the back
of the waistband and I could only wear the vest by inserting pieces
below the arm-holes, but the coat was entirely too small to be of any
practical service. My experience in the mountains had evidently made
quite a different type of man out of me, and I should have had my
measure taken again before sending orders to the tailor.
Soon after our return from the trip to find a new route across the
Jornada, I received a letter from Doctor Lyons asking me to exchange
stations with him. I wrote back that I would make the change if he would
make the application, which he did, and orders soon came directing the
change. We started from Stanton the latter part of April, with the usual
ambulance, and wagon and baggage, and an escort to care for us on the
way. Between the White mountains and the lower range to the west is
quite a wide valley which is called the Malpais (or bad country) near
the center of which is a lava flow a few hundred yards wide. The crater,
or peak from which it came is not in the mountain range as one would
naturally suppose it to be but stands out near the middle of the valley,
maybe ten miles above where we crossed. The outlines of the streams are
quite distinct until some distance below, where it is lost in a great
white plain of alkali. There had been much work done to make a road
across this lava flow passable for vehicles, but it was still very rough
when we crossed it, so much so that my wife preferred to walk, and
nearly wore her shoe soles out in doing so. When did this lava flow
occur? I don't know. Maybe ten thousand years ago, but it looked as
though it might have been last week.
There were quite a number of little cone-shaped mounds in this valley,
and I examined some of those close to the road. They varied in size, and
none that I saw were more than ten or twelve feet in height, and they
all had craters, containing blackish looking water. In some of them the
water seemed to be higher than the valley in which they were located.
We camped on the second night in the foothills of the San Andres range,
and the following evening at the Oho De Anija. These springs were
interesting because of the great amount of painted and broken pottery to
be found nearby. I think some excavating might bring to light whole
pieces of value to the archaeologist. The spring is located only a few
miles from Paraja a on the Rio Grande, and at the extreme northern limit
of the Jornada del Muerto, and the next day we arrived at Fort McRae.