The invasion of Sonora in the summer of 1857 by filibusters from
California, generally called the "Crabb Expedition," caused the pall of
death to fall on the boundary line of Mexico. Forty-two Americans had
been massacred at Caborca, and many Mexicans had been killed. The
abrasion was so serious that Americans were not safe over the Mexican
boundary, and Mexicans were in danger in the boundaries of the United
States.
Gabilonda, who was the only Mexican officer who protested against the
massacre, came very near being mobbed by Americans in Tucson, although
he was perfectly innocent of any crime,--on the contrary, deserved
credit for his humanity in rescuing the boy Evans. Gabilonda was
subsequently tried by a Mexican court martial organized by Pesquiera,
the Governor of Sonora, and acquitted. He lived to a green old age as
Collector of Mexican customs on the boundary line, and died honored and
respected.
When I returned from San Francisco to the mines, in the winter of 1857,
the country was paralyzed; but by the talisman of silver bars the mines
were put in operation again, and miners induced to come in from Mexico.
Christmas week the usual festival was given at Arivaca, and all the
neighbors within a hundred miles invited.
In 1858 the business of the Territory resumed its former prosperity, and
the sad events of the "Crabb Expedition" were smoothed over as far as
possible. The government had subsidized an overland mail service at
nearly a million a year, called the Butterfield line, with daily mails
from St. Louis to San Francisco, running through Arizona. The mail
service of the West has done a great deal to build up the country; and
population came flocking into the Territory with high hopes of its
future prosperity.
General Heintzelman obtained a furlough, and came out to superintend the
mines. Colonel Samuel Colt, of revolver fame, succeeded him as president
of the company, as he had contributed about two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars in money and arms to its resources, with the intention
of enlisting as much capital as might be required from New England.
Machinery was constructed on the Atlantic seaboard, and hauled overland
from the Gulf of Mexico to the mines,--1350 miles.
The Apaches had not up to this time given any trouble; but on the
contrary, passed within sight of our herds, going hundreds of miles into
Mexico on their forays rather than break their treaty with the
Americans. They could have easily carried off our stock by killing the
few vaqueros kept with them on the range, but refrained from doing so
from motives well understood on the frontiers. There is an unwritten law
among ranchmen as old as the treaty between Abraham and Lot.
In 1857 a company of lumbermen from Maine, under a captain named Tarbox,
established a camp in the Santa Rita Mountains to whipsaw lumber at one
hundred and fifty dollars per thousand feet, and were doing well, as the
company bought all they could saw. They built a house and corral on the
south side of the Santa Cruz River, on the road from Tucson to Tubac,
called the Canoa. This wayside inn formed a very convenient stopping
place for travelers on the road. One day twenty-five or thirty Mexicans
rode into Tubac, and said the Apaches had made a raid on their ranches,
and were carrying off some hundred head of horses and mules over the
Babaquivera plain, intending to cross the Santa Cruz River between the
Canoa and Tucson. The Mexicans wanted us to join them in a cortada (cut
off), and rescue the animals, offering to divide them with us for our
assistance; but remembering our treaty with the Apaches, and how
faithfully they had kept it, we declined. They went on to the Canoa,
where the lumbermen were in camp, and made the same proposition, which
they accepted, as they were new in the country and needed horses and
mules. The lumbermen joined the Mexicans, and as they could easily
discern the course of the Apaches by the clouds of dust, succeeded in
forming an ambuscade and fired on the Apaches when they reached the
river. The Apaches fled at the fire, leaving the stolen stock behind.
The Mexicans made a fair division, and the mule trade was lively with
the lumbermen and the merchants in Tucson. With the proceeds of their
adventure the lumbermen added many comforts and luxuries to their camp
at the Canoa on the Santa Cruz, and travelers reveled in crystal and
whisky.
About the next full moon after this event, we had been passing the usual
quiet Sunday in Tubac, when a Mexican vaquero came galloping furiously
into the plaza, crying out: "Apaches! Apaches! Apaches!" As soon as he
had recovered sufficiently to talk, we learned that the Apaches had made
an attack on Canoa, and killed all the settlers.
It was late in the day; the men had nearly all gone to the mines, and we
could only muster about a dozen men and horses; so we did not start
until early next morning, as the Mexican said there were "Muchos
Apaches."
When we reached the Canoa, a little after sunrise, the place looked as
if it had been struck by a hurricane. The doors and windows were
smashed, and the house a smoking ruin. The former inmates were lying
around dead, and three of them had been thrown into the well, head
foremost. We buried seven men in a row, in front of the burnt houses.
As well as could be ascertained by the tracks, there must have been
fully eighty Apaches on horseback. They carried off on this raid 280
head of animals from the Canoa and the adjoining ranches.
There were some companies of the First Dragoons eating beef at Fort
Buchanan. The commanding officer was notified, and sent some troops in
pursuit, but the Apaches were in their strongholds long before the
dragoons saddled their horses.
The pursuit of Apaches is exceedingly dangerous, as they are very
skillful in forming ambuscades, and never give a fair fight in an open
field. Their horsemanship is far superior to American troops, who are
for the most part foreigners, and exceedingly awkward.
The second serious trouble with the Apaches was brought about by a far
more foolish cause than the first, and it was much more disastrous.
In the winter of 1857 a somber colored son of Erin came along on foot to
the presidio of Tubac, and solicited the rights of hospitality, food and
a fire. Whether he had been run out of California by the Vigilance
Committee, as many of our "guests" had been, or was escaping legitimate
justice, was not in question; the imperative cravings of the stomach
admit of very scant ceremony; so I took John Ward in to dinner, and
provided him with all the comforts of home.
At bed-time he asked me if he might sleep in the front room by the
fire; to which I reluctantly consented, taking good care to lock and bar
the door between us.
The next morning after breakfast I gave John Ward some grub, and advised
him to push on to Fort Buchanan, on the Sonoita, where he could probably
get some employment.
He went on to the Sonoita and took up a ranch, forming a temporary
partnership with a Mexican woman, according to the customs of the
country at that time.
She had a little boy who also appeared to be partly of Celtic descent,
as he had a red head, and was nicknamed "Micky Free." This probably
formed the only matrimonial tie between John Ward and the Mexican woman.
In the course of time John Ward got a hay contract, a wagon, and a few
yoke of oxen, and appeared to be thriving at Uncle Sam's expense. Fort
Buchanan was garrisoned by a portion of the First Regiment of dragoons.
The most of the men were Germans, and could not mount a horse without a
step-ladder.
In the early part of 1858 John Ward got drunk, and beat his step-son
Micky Free until he ran away to Sonora. Ward became so blind drunk that
he could not find his oxen; so he went to the Fort and complained to
Major Stein, the commanding officer, that the Apaches had stolen his
oxen and carried off the woman's boy.
Major Stein was a very good man, and very capable of running a saw-mill
in Missouri, where he came from. He listened to John Ward's tale of woe,
and ordered out a detachment of the First Dragoons, under Lieutenant
Bascomb, to pursue the Apaches and recover Micky Free and the oxen.
Bascomb was a fine-looking young fellow, a Kentuckian, a West Pointer,
and of course a gentleman; but he was unfortunately a fool; although his
uncle, Preacher Bascomb, of Lexington, was accounted a very eminent
clergyman of the Presbyterian Church. This is a very different family
from Bascomb of the Confederate X roads.
Lieutenant Bascomb's command pursued some Apaches, who had been raiding
in Sonora, into the Whetstone Mountains, where they called a parley. The
Apaches were summoned to camp _under a white flag_; and feeling
perfectly innocent of having committed a crime against the Americans,
fearlessly presented themselves before Lieutenant Bascomb and his boys
in blue. They positively denied having seen the boy or stolen the oxen;
and they told the truth, as was well known afterward; but the Lieutenant
was not satisfied, and ordered them seized and executed.
Four Apache chiefs were seized and tied. Cochise (in the Apache dialect
Wood) managed to get hold of a knife, which he had concealed, cut his
bonds, and escape. He was a very brave leader, and after having wreaked
a terrible vengeance for the treachery of American troops to the
Apaches, died in peace at the Indian Agency in the Chiricahua Mountains,
1874.
The war thus inaugurated by this Apache chieftain lasted fourteen years,
and has scarcely any parallel in the horrors of Indian warfare. The men,
women, and children, killed; the property destroyed, and the detriment
to the settlement of Arizona cannot be computed. The cost of the war
against Cochise would have purchased John Ward a string of yokes of oxen
reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and as for his woman's son,
Micky Free, he afterwards became an Indian scout and interpreter, and
about as infamous a scoundrel as those who generally adorn that
profession. I am on very friendly terms with him and all his family, and
would not write a word in derogation of his character, or of his
step-father, John Ward, but to vindicate history.
The Vigilance Committee of San Francisco sent a considerable number of
unsavory immigrants to Arizona, who with the refugees from Mexico, Texas
and Arkansas, rendered mule property rather insecure in the early days.
Gambling has been an industrial pursuit since the first settlement of
the country, and the saloon business flourishes with the prosperity of
the times. Strange to say, amidst this heterogeneous population there
has never been a vigilance committee.
The Company and the country (synonymous terms) continued to improve,
with occasional interruptions by the Apaches, until the beginning of
1861, when the reverberations of the gun fired at Sumter were heard in
the Arizona mountains. A newspaper had been started by the company at
Tubac, called _The Arizonian_. Our mail came overland by Butterfield
coaches, at the rate of a hundred miles a day, but at last we waited for
"the mail that never came." In the spring of 1861 a coach was started
out from the Rio Grande with thirteen of the bravest buckskin boys of
the West, and ten or twelve thousand dollars in gold, to pay off the
line and withdraw the service; but the Apaches waylaid the coach in
Stein's Pass, killed all of the men, and captured the gold.
In the month of June the machinery was running smoothly at Arivaca, the
mines were yielding handsomely, and two hundred and fifty employees were
working for good wages, which were paid punctually every Saturday
afternoon.
One day an orderly from Fort Buchanan rode up to headquarters and
handed me a note from Lieutenant Chapin, enclosing a copy of an order
from the commanding officer of the Military Department:--
Santa Fe, June, 1861,
Commanding Officer, Fort Buchanan:--
On receipt of this you will abandon and destroy
your Post; burn your Commissary and Quartermasters'
stores, and everything between the Colorado
and Rio Grande that will feed an army.
March out with your guns loaded, and do not
permit any citizen within fifteen miles of your lines.
(Signed) Major General Lynde
A council of the principal employees was called, and the order laid
before them. The wisest said we could not hold the country after the
troops abandoned it,--that the Apaches would come down upon us by the
hundred, and the Mexicans would cut our throats. It was concluded to
reduce the ore we had mined, which was yielding about a thousand dollars
a day, pay off the hands, and prepare for the worst.
About a week afterwards the Apaches came down by stealth, and carried
off out of the corral one hundred and forty-six horses and mules.
The Apaches are very adroit in stealing stock, and no doubt inherit the
skill of many generations in theft. The corrals are generally built of
adobe, with a gate or bars at the entrance. It was a customary practice
for the Apaches to saw an entrance through an adobe wall with their
horsehair ropes (cabrestas).
The corral at Arivaca was constructed of adobes, with a layer of cactus
poles (ocquitillo) lengthwise between each layer of adobes. The Apaches
tried their rope saw, but the cactus parted the rope. The bars were up,
and a log chain wound around each bar and locked to the post; but they
removed the bars quietly by wrapping their scrapes around the chain, to
prevent the noise alarming the watchman. The steam engine was running
day and night, and the watchman had orders to go the rounds of the place
every hour during the night; but the Apaches were so skillful and
secretive in their movements that not the least intimation of their
presence on the place was observed,--not even by the watchdogs, which
generally have a keen scent for Indians.
At the break of day the Apaches gave a whoop, and disappeared with the
entire herd before the astonished gaze of five watchmen, who were
sleeping under a porch within thirty yards. A pursuit was organized as
soon as possible; but the pursuers soon ran into an ambuscade prepared
by the retreating Apaches, when three were killed and two wounded. The
rest returned without recovering any of the stock.
This loss of stock made very lonesome times at Arivaca, as it could not
be replaced in the country, and we had no animals to haul ores, fuel, or
provisions; only a few riding and ambulance animals, which had to be
kept in stables and fed on grain.
About the same time the Apaches made an attack on the Santa Rita Mining
Hacienda, and the eastern side of the Santa Cruz River had to be
abandoned.
At Tubac, the headquarters of the company, where the old Mexican cuartel
furnished ample room for storage, about a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars worth of merchandise, machinery and supplies were stored. The
Apaches, to the number of nearly a hundred, surrounded the town and
compelled its evacuation. The plunder and destruction of property was
complete. We had scarcely a safe place to sleep, and nothing to sleep on
but the ground.
The women and children were escorted to the old pueblo of Tucson, where
the few people remaining in the Territory were concentrated; and they
remained there in a miserable condition until the troops arrived from
California under General James A. Carlton, United States Army, commonly
called "Carlton's Column."
General Carlton, upon arriving in the Territory, issued an order
declaring martial law between the Colorado and the Rio Grande. These
troops garrisoned the country between the rivers, and drove out the
rebel troops, who had come in from Texas under the Confederate
government.
After the abandonment of the Territory by the United States troops armed
Mexicans in considerable numbers crossed the boundary line, declaring
that the American government was broken up, and they had come to take
their country back again. Even the few Americans left in the country
were not at peace among themselves,--the chances were that if you met in
the road it was to draw arms, and declare whether you were for the North
or the South.
The Mexicans at the mines assassinated all the white men there when they
were asleep, looted the place, and fled across the boundary to Mexico.
The smoke of burning wheat-fields could be seen up and down the Santa
Cruz valley, where the troops were in retreat, destroying everything
before and behind them. The government of the United States abandoned
the first settlers of Arizona to the merciless Apaches. It was
impossible to remain in the country and continue the business without
animals for transportation, so there was nothing to be done but to pack
our portable property on the few animals we kept in stables, and strike
out across the deserts for California.
With only one companion, Professor Pumpelly, and a faithful negro and
some friendly Indians for packers, we made the journey to Yuma by the
fourth of July, where we first heard of the battle of Bull Run. Another
journey took us across the Colorado Desert to Los Angeles, and thence we
went by steamer to San Francisco, and thence via Panama to New York.
It was sad to leave the country that had cost so much money and blood in
ruins, but it seemed to be inevitable. The plant of the Company at this
time in machinery, materials, tools, provisions, animals, wagons, etc.,
amounted to considerably over a million dollars, but the greatest blow
was the destruction of our hopes,--not so much of making money as of
making a country. Of all the lonesome sounds that I remember (and it
seems ludicrous now), most distinct is the crowing of cocks on the
deserted ranches. The very chickens seemed to know that they were
abandoned.
We were followed all the way to Yuma by a band of Mexican robbers, as it
was supposed we carried a great amount of treasure, and the fatigue of
the journey by day and standing guard all night was trying on the
strongest constitution in the hot summer month of June.
An account of the breaking up of Arizona and our journey across the
deserts to California has been given by Professor Pumpelly, in his book,
"Across America and Asia." The subject is so repugnant that the
harrowing scenes preceding the abandonment of the country are only
briefly stated.
The Civil War was in full blast upon my arrival in New York, and the
change of venue from Apache Land was not peaceful. The little balance to
my credit from the silver mines was with William T. Coleman & Co., 88
Wall Street, and I put it up as margin on gold at $132 and sold for
$250.
After resting a while in New York I went down to Washington, and found
my old friend General Heintzelman in command of what was technically
called "The Defenses of Washington." The capital of the nation was
beleaguered!
The Civil War and its results set Arizona back about twenty years.
The location of the Iturbide Grant had been continued in Sonora and
Lower California, under direction of Captain--afterwards General--Stone,
an officer for the United States Army, of engineering ability. I had
first become acquainted with him when he was quartermaster at Benicia
Barracks, in California, and met him the last time when he was chief of
staff to the Khedive of Egypt at Grand Cairo, on the Nile.
Pesquiera, the governor of Sonora, held the state in quasi-independence
of Mexico, and drove the surveying party under Stone out of Mexico by
force of arms.
The funds for the location and survey of the Iturbide Grant had been
furnished by French bankers in San Francisco, and obtained by them
through their correspondent in Paris. A large portion of the money had
been contributed by the entourage of the Second Empire under Napoleon,
as the French were desirous of getting a foothold in Mexico. The
expulsion of Stone's locating and surveying party was considered an
affront to France, as the survey and location were undertaken under a
valid grant of land made by the Mexican government, and the French were
not satisfied to lose the many millions of francs they had invested in
the enterprise. The influence of the shareholders in the Iturbide land
location finally caused the intervention of the French government.
It will be remembered that the first intervention was a joint occupation
of Vera Cruz by French, English and Spanish; but the English and Spanish
soon withdrew, and left the French to pull their own chestnut out of
the fire.
The time was not ripe for the French intervention in Mexico until we
were in the midst of the Civil War, when Napoleon seized the opportunity
to set up Maximilian of Austria, as Emperor of Mexico, protected by
French forces under Bazaine.
No doubt but Napoleon and the officials of the Second Empire sympathized
with the government of the Confederate States, and would have given them
substantial aid if they had dared; but the Russian Czar sent a fleet to
New York as a warning,--and the French had had enough of Russians on
their track.
It was expressly stipulated in France, upon the founding of the
Maximilian Empire, that the obligations given for funds to carry on the
survey and location of the Iturbide Grant should be inscribed and
recognized as a public debt of the Empire, and such will be found a
matter of record and history. Many Frenchmen, no doubt, keep them as
companion souvenirs to the obligations of the Panama Canal. The Grant
has never been located, and the Mexican government yet owes the heirs,
in equity, the original million dollars.
The French, under Maximilian, occupied Mexico up to the American
boundary line, and many Mexicans took refuge in the United
States,--among them Pesquiera, the governor of Sonora. His camp was at
the old Mission of Tumucacori, in the Santa Cruz Valley and his wife is
buried there.
President Juarez, of Mexico, was a refugee at El Paso del Norte during
the reign of Maximilian, in destitute circumstances, when I was enabled
to furnish him with a hundred thousand dollars in gold on a concession
of Lower California. The circumstances were recently related for the
Examiner of San Francisco, by Señor Romero, the Mexican minister in
Washington.
During the brief existence of the Maximilian Empire in Mexico, many
Americans flocked to the capital for adventures, as sympathizers with
the government of the Confederate States, and consequently with the
occupation of Mexico.
The late Senator Gwin of California was the acknowledged leader of the
Americans, and it was rumored that he was to be created Duke of Sonora,
but I never believed that the sterling old Democrat would have accepted
a title of nobility.
The battle of Gettysburg sealed the fate of the Maximilian Empire, as
well as the fate of the empire of the United States. The Mexican Empire
and the French Empire have both passed away like dreams, but the Empire
of the People grows stronger every year.