The Wagon Mound, so called from its resemblance to a covered army-wagon,
is a rocky mesa forty miles from Point of Rocks, westwardly. The stretch
of the Trail from the latter to the mound has been the scene of some
desperate encounters, only exceeded in number and sanguinary results by
those which have occurred in the region of Pawnee Rock, the crossing of
the Walnut, Pawnee Fork, and Cow Creek.
One of the most remarkable stories of this Wagon Mound country dealt
with the nerve and bravery exhibited by John L. Hatcher in defence of
his life, and those of the men in his caravan, about 1858.
Hatcher was a noted trader and merchant of New Mexico. He was also
celebrated as an Indian fighter, and his name was a terror to the
savages who infested the settlements of New Mexico and raided the Trail.
He left Taos, where he then resided, in the summer, with his caravan
loaded with furs and pelts destined for Westport Landing; to be
forwarded from there to St. Louis, the only market for furs in the far
West. His train was a small one, comprising about fifteen wagons and
handled by about as many men, including himself. At the date of his
adventure the Indians were believed to be at peace with everybody; a
false idea, as Hatcher well knew, for there never was such a condition
of affairs as absolute immunity from their attacks. While it might be
true that the old men refrained for a time from starting out on the
war-path, there were ever the vastly greater number of restless young
warriors who had not yet earned their eagle feathers, who could not be
controlled by their chiefs, and who were always engaged in marauding,
either among the border settlements or along the line of the Trail.
When Hatcher was approaching the immediate vicinity of Wagon Mound,[66]
with his train strung out in single column, to his great astonishment
there suddenly charged on him from over the hill about three hundred
savages, all feather-bedecked and painted in the highest style of Indian
art. As they rode toward the caravan, they gave the sign of peace,
which Hatcher accepted for the time as true, although he knew them well.
However, he invited the head men to some refreshment, as was usual on
such occasions in those days, throwing a blanket on the ground, on which
sugar in abundance was served out. The sweet-toothed warriors helped
themselves liberally, and affected much delight at the way they were
being treated; but Hatcher, with his knowledge of the savage character,
was firm in the belief that they came for no other purpose than to rob
the caravan and kill him and his men.
They were Comanches, and one of the most noted chiefs of the tribe was
in command of the band, with some inferior chiefs under him. I think it
was Old Wolf, a very old man then, whose raids into Texas had made his
name a terror to the Mexicans living on the border.
While the chiefs were eating their saccharine lunch, Hatcher was losing
no time in forming his wagons into a corral, but he told his friends
afterward that he had no idea that either he or any of his men would
escape; only fifteen or sixteen men against over three hundred merciless
savages, and those the worst on the continent, and a small corral--the
chances were totally hopeless! Nothing but a desperate action could
avail, and maybe not even that.[67] Hatcher, after the other head men
had finished eating, asked the old chief to send his young warriors away
over the hill. They were all sitting close to one of the wagons, Old
Wolf, in fact, leaning against the wheel resting on his blanket, with
Hatcher next him on his right. Hatcher was so earnest in his appeal to
have the young men sent away, that both the venerable villain and his
other chiefs rose and were standing. Without a moment's notice or the
slightest warning, Hatcher reached with his left hand and grabbed Old
Wolf by his scalp-lock, and with his right drew his butcher-knife from
its scabbard and thrust it at the throat of the chief. All this was
done in an instant, as quick as lightning; no one had time to move. The
situation was remarkable. The little, wiry man, surrounded by eight or
nine of the most renowned warriors of the dreaded Comanches, stood firm;
everybody was breathless; not a word did the savages say. Hatcher then
said again to Old Wolf, in the most determined manner: "Send your
young men over the hill at once, or I'll kill you right where you are!"
holding on to the hair of the savage with his left hand and keeping the
knife at his throat.
The other Indians did not dare to make a move; they knew what kind of a
man Hatcher was; they knew he would do as he had said, and that if they
attempted a rescue he would kill their favourite chief in a second.
Old Wolf shook his head defiantly in the negative. Hatcher repeated his
order, getting madder all the time: "Send your young men over the hill;
I tell you!" Old Wolf was still stubborn; he shook his head again.
Hatcher gave him another chance: "Send your young men over the hill, I
tell you, or I'll scalp you alive as you are!" Again the chief shook his
head. Then Hatcher, still holding on the hair of his stubborn victim,
commenced to make an incision in the head of Old Wolf, for the
determined man was bound to carry out his threat; but he began very
slowly.
As the chief felt the blood trickle down his forehead, he weakened. He
ordered his next in command to send the young men over the hill and out
of sight. The order was repeated immediately to the warriors, who were
astonished spectators of the strange scene, and they quickly mounted
their horses and rode away over the hill as fast as they could thump
their animals' sides with their legs, leaving only five or six chiefs
with Old Wolf and Hatcher.
Hatcher held on like grim death to the old chief's head, and immediately
ordered his men to throw the robes out of the wagons as quickly as they
could, and get inside themselves. This was promptly obeyed, and when
they were all under the cover of the wagon sheets, Hatcher let go of his
victim's hair, and, with a last kick, told him and his friends that they
could leave. They went off, and did not return.
Some laughable incidents have enlivened the generally sanguinary history
of the Old Santa Fe Trail, but they were very serious at the time to
those who were the actors, and their ludicrousness came after all was
over.
In the late summer of 1866, a thieving band of Apaches came into the
vicinity of Fort Union, New Mexico, and after carefully reconnoitring
the whole region and getting at the manner in which the stock belonging
to the fort was herded, they secreted themselves in the Turkey Mountains
overlooking the entire reservation, and lay in wait for several days,
watching for a favourable moment to make a raid into the valley and
drive off the herd.
Selecting an occasion when the guard was weak and not very alert, they
in broad daylight crawled under the cover of a hill, and, mounting their
horses, dashed out with the most unearthly yells and down among the
animals that were quietly grazing close to the fort, which terrified
these so greatly that they broke away from the herders, and started at
their best gait toward the mountains, closely followed by the savages.
The astonished soldiers used every effort to avert the evident loss of
their charge, and many shots were exchanged in the running fight that
ensued; but the Indians were too strong for them, and they were forced
to abandon the chase.
Among the herders was a bugler boy, who was remarkable for his bravery
in the skirmish and for his untiring endeavours to turn the animals back
toward the fort, but all without avail; on they went, with the savages,
close to their heels, giving vent to the most vociferous shouts of
exultation, and directing the most obscene and insulting gesticulations
to the soldiers that were after them.
While this exciting contest for the mastery was going on, an old Apache
chief dashed in the rear of the bold bugler boy, and could, without
doubt, easily have killed the little fellow; but instead of doing
this, from some idea of a good joke, or for some other incomprehensible
reason, his natural blood-thirsty instinct was changed, and he merely
knocked the bugler's hat from his head with the flat of his hand, and
at the same time encouragingly stroked his hair, as much as to say: "You
are a brave boy," and then rode off without doing him any harm.
Thirty years ago last August, I was riding from Fort Larned to Fort
Union, New Mexico, in the overland coach. I had one of my clerks with
me; we were the only passengers, and arrived at Fort Dodge, which was
the commencement of the "long route," at midnight. There we changed
drivers, and at the break of day were some twenty-four miles on our
lonely journey. The coach was rattling along at a breakneck gait, and I
saw that something was evidently wrong. Looking out of one of the doors,
I noticed that our Jehu was in a beastly state of intoxication. It was a
most dangerous portion of the Trail; the Indians were not in the best
of humours, and an attack was not at all improbable before we arrived at
the next station, Fort Lyon.
I said to my clerk that something must be done; so I ordered the
driver to halt, which he did willingly, got out, and found that,
notwithstanding his drunken mood, he was very affable and disposed to
be full of fun. I suggested that he get inside the coach and lie down
to sleep off his potations, to which he readily assented, while I and
my clerk, after snugly fixing him on the cushions, got on the boot, I
taking the lines, he seizing an old trace-chain, with which he pounded
the mules along; for we felt ourselves in a ticklish predicament should
we come across any of the brigands of the plains, on that lonely route,
with the animals to look out for, and only two of us to do the fighting.
Suddenly we saw sitting on the bank of the Arkansas River, about a dozen
rods from the Trail, an antiquated-looking savage with his war-bonnet
on, and armed with a long lance and his bow and arrows. We did not care
a cent for him, but I thought he might be one of the tribe's runners,
lying in wait to discover the condition of the coach--whether it had an
escort, and how many were riding in it, and that then he would go and
tell how ridiculously small the outfit was, and swoop down on us with
a band of his colleagues, that were hidden somewhere in the sand hills
south of the river. He rose as we came near, and made the sign, after
he had given vent to a series of "How's!" that he wanted to talk; but
we were not anxious for any general conversation with his savage majesty
just then, so my clerk applied the trace-chain more vigorously to the
tired mules, in order to get as many miles between him and the coach as
we could before he could get over into the sand hills and back.
It was, fortunately, a false alarm; the old warrior perhaps had no
intentions of disturbing us. We arrived at Fort Lyon in good season,
with our valorous driver absolutely sobered, requesting me to say
nothing about his accident, which, of course, I did not.
As has been stated, the caravans bound for Santa Fe and the various
forts along the line of the Old Trail did not leave the eastern end of
the route until the grass on the plains, on which the animals depended
solely for subsistence the whole way, grew sufficiently to sustain them,
which was usually about the middle of May. But a great many years
ago, one of the high officials of the quartermaster's department at
Washington, who had never been for a moment on duty on the frontier
in his life, found a good deal of fault with what he thought the
dilatoriness of the officer in charge at Fort Leavenworth, who
controlled the question of transportation for the several forts
scattered all over the West, for not getting the freight caravans
started earlier, which the functionary at the capital said must and
should be done. He insisted that they must leave the Missouri River by
the middle of April, a month earlier than usual, and came out himself
to superintend the matter. He made the contracts accordingly, easily
finding contractors that suited him. He then wrote to headquarters in
a triumphant manner that he had revolutionized the whole system of army
transportation of supplies to the military posts. Delighted with his
success, he rode out about the second week of May to Salt Creek, only
three miles from the fort, and, very much to his astonishment, found his
teams, which he had believed to be on the way to Santa Fe a month ago,
snugly encamped. They had "started," just as was agreed.
There are, or rather were, hundreds of stories current thirty-five years
ago of stage-coach adventures on the Trail; a volume could be filled
with them, but I must confine myself to a few.
John Chisholm was a famous ranchman a long while ago, who had so many
cattle that it was said he did not know their number himself. At one
time he had a large contract to furnish beef to an Indian agency in
Arizona; he had just delivered an immense herd there, and very wisely,
after receiving his cash for them, sent most of it on to Santa Fe in
advance of his own journey. When he arrived there, he started for the
Missouri River with a thousand dollars and sufficient small change to
meet his current expenses on the road.
The very first night out from Santa Fe, the coach was halted by a band
of men who had been watching Chisholm's movements from the time he
left the agency in Arizona. The instant the stage came to a standstill,
Chisholm divined what it meant, and had time to thrust a roll of money
down one of the legs of his trousers before the door was thrown back and
he was ordered to fork over what he had.
He invited the robbers to search him, and to take what they might find,
but said he was not in a financial condition at that juncture to turn
over much. The thieves found his watch, took that, and then began to
search him. As luck would have it, they entirely missed the roll that
was down his leg, and discovered but a two-dollar bill in his vest.
When he told them it was all he had to buy grub on the road, one of the
robbers handed him a silver dollar, remarking as he did so: "That a man
who was mean enough to travel with only two dollars ought to starve, but
he would give him the dollar just to let him know that he was dealing
with gentlemen!"
One of the essentials to the comfort of the average soldier is tobacco.
He must have it; he would sooner forego any component part of his ration
than give it up.
In November, 1865, a detachment of Company L, of the Eleventh Kansas
Volunteers, and of the Second Colorado were ordered from Fort Larned
to Fort Lyon on a scouting expedition along the line of the Trail, the
savages having been very active in their raids on the freight caravans.
In a short time their tobacco began to run low, and as there was no
settlement of any kind between the two military posts, there was no
chance to replenish their stock. One night, while encamped on the
Arkansas, the only piece that was left in the whole command, about half
a plug, was unfortunately lost, and there was dismay in the camp when
the fact was announced. Hours were spent in searching for the missing
treasure. The next morning the march was delayed for some time, while
further diligent search was instituted by all hands, but without result,
and the command set out on its weary tramp, as disconsolate as may well
be imagined by those who are victims to the habit of chewing the weed.
Arriving at Fort Lyon, to their greater discomfort it was learned that
the sutler at that post was entirely out of the coveted article, and
the troops began their return journey more disconsolate than ever.
Dry leaves, grass, and even small bits of twigs, were chewed as a
substitute, until, reaching the spot where they had lost the part of
a plug, they determined to remain there that night and begin a more
vigorous hunt for the missing piece. Just before dark their efforts were
rewarded; one of the men found it, and such a scramble occurred for even
the smallest nibble at it! Enormous prices were given for a single chew.
It opened at one dollar for a mere sliver, rose to five, and closed at
ten dollars when the last morsel was left.