FREMONT'S FOURTH EXPEDITION, AND GREAT DISASTER IN THE SNOWS AT THE
HEAD OF THE RIO GRANDE DEL NORTE: SUBSEQUENT DISCOVERY OF THE PASS
HE SOUGHT.
No sooner freed from the army, than Frémont set out upon a fourth
expedition to the western slope of our continent, now entirely at
his own expense, and to be conducted during the winter, and upon
a new line of exploration. His views were practical as well as
scientific, and tending to the establishment of a railroad to the
Pacific, as well as the enlargement of geographical knowledge. He
took the winter for his time, as that was the season in which to see
all the disadvantages of his route; and the head of the Rio Grande
del Norte for his line, as it was the line of the centre, and one
not yet explored, and always embraced in his plan of discovery. The
mountain men had informed him that there was a good pass at the head
of the Del Norte. Besides other dangers and hardships, he had the
war ground of the Utahs, Apaches, Navahoes, and other formidable
tribes to pass through, then all engaged in hostilities with the
United States, and ready to prey upon any party of whites; but 33
of his old companions, 120 picked mules, fine rifles--experience,
vigilance and courage--were his reliance; and a trusted security
against all evil. Arrived at the _Pueblos_ on the Upper Arkansas,
the last of November, at the base of the first sierra to be crossed,
luminous with snow and stern in their dominating look, he dismounted
his whole company, took to their feet, and wading waist-deep in the
vast unbroken snow field, arrived on the other side in the beautiful
valley of San Luis; but still on the eastern side of the great
mountain chain which divided the waters which ran east and west to
the rising and the setting sun. At the head of that valley was the
pass, described to him by the old hunters. With his glasses he could
see the depression in the mountain which marked its place. He had
taken a local guide from the Pueblo San Carlos to lead him to that
pass. But this precaution for safety was the passport to disaster.
He was behind, with his faithful draughtsman, Preuss, when he saw
his guide leading off the company towards a mass of mountains to
the left: he rode up and stopped them, remonstrated with the guide
for two hours; and then yielded to his positive assertion that the
pass was there. The company entered a tortuous gorge, following a
valley through which ran a head stream of the great river Del Norte.
Finally they came to where the ascent was to begin, and the summit
range crossed. The snow was deep, the cold intense, the acclivity
steep, and the huge rocks projecting. The ascent was commenced in
the morning, struggled with during the day, an elevation reached
at which vegetation (wood) ceased, and the summit in view, when,
buried in snow, exhausted with fatigue, freezing with cold, and
incapable of further exertion, the order was given to fall back to
the line of vegetation where wood would afford fire and shelter for
the night. With great care the animals were saved from freezing,
and at the first dawn of day the camp, after a daybreak breakfast,
were in motion for the ascent. Precautions had been taken to make
it more practicable. Mauls, prepared during the night, were carried
by the foremost division to beat down a road in the snow. Men went
forward by relieves. Mules and baggage followed in long single
file in the track made in the snow. The mountain was scaled: the
region of perpetual congelation was entered. It was the winter
solstice, and at a place where the summer solstice brought no life
to vegetation--no thaw to congelation. The summit of the sierra was
bare of every thing but snow, ice and rocks. It was no place to
halt. Pushing down the side of the mountain to reach the wood three
miles distant, a new and awful danger presented itself: a snow storm
raging, the freezing winds beating upon the exposed caravan, the
snow become too deep for the mules to move in, and the cold beyond
the endurance of animal life. The one hundred and twenty mules,
huddling together from an instinct of self-preservation from each
other's heat and shelter, froze stiff as they stood, and fell over
like blocks, to become hillocks of snow. Leaving all behind, and the
men's lives only to be saved, the discomfited and freezing party
scrambled back, recrossing the summit, and finding under the lee of
the mountain some shelter from the driving storm, and in the wood
that was reached the means of making fires.
The men's lives were now saved, but destitute of every thing, only
a remnant of provisions, and not even the resource of the dead
mules which were on the other side of the summit; and the distance
computed at ten days of their travel to the nearest New Mexican
settlement. The guide, and three picked men, were despatched thither
for some supplies, and twenty days fixed for their return. When
they had been gone sixteen days, Frémont, preyed upon by anxiety
and misgiving, set off after them, on foot, snow to the waist,
blankets and some morsels of food on the back: the brave Godey,
his draughtsman Preuss, and a faithful servant, his only company.
When out six days he came upon the camp of his guide, stationary
and apparently without plan or object, and the men haggard, wild
and emaciated. Not seeing King, the principal one of the company,
and on whom he relied, he asked for him. They pointed to an older
camp, a little way off. Going there he found the man dead, and
partly devoured. He had died of exhaustion, of fatigue, and his
comrades fed upon him. Gathering up these three survivors, Frémont
resumed his journey, and had not gone far before he fell on signs
of Indians--two lodges, implying 15 or 20 men, and some 40 or 50
horses--all recently passed along. At another time this would have
been an alarm, one of his fears being that of falling in with a war
party. He knew not what Indians they were, but all were hostile in
that quarter, and evasion the only security against them. To avoid
their course was his obvious resource: on the contrary, he followed
it! for such was the desperation of his situation that even a change
of danger had an attraction. Pursuing the trail down the Del Norte,
then frozen solid over, and near the place where Pike encamped
in the winter of 1807-'8, they saw an Indian behind his party,
stopped to get water from an air hole. He was cautiously approached,
circumvented, and taken. Frémont told his name: the young man, for
he was quite young, started, and asked him if he was the Frémont
that had exchanged presents with the chief of the Utahs at Las Vegas
de Santa Clara three years before? He was answered, yes. Then, said
the young man, we are friends: that chief was my father, and I
remember you. The incident was romantic, but it did not stop there.
Though on a war inroad upon the frontiers of New Mexico, the young
chief became his guide, let him have four horses, conducted him to
the neighborhood of the settlements, and then took his leave, to
resume his scheme of depredation upon the frontier.
Frémont's party reached Taos, was sheltered in the house of his
old friend Carson--obtained the supplies needed--sent them back
by the brave Godey, who was in time to save two-thirds of the
party, finding the other third dead along the road, scattered at
intervals as each had sunk exhausted and frozen, or half burnt in
the fire which had been kindled for them to die by. The survivors
were brought in by Godey, some crippled with frozen feet. Frémont
found himself in a situation which tries the soul--which makes the
issue between despair and heroism--and leaves no alternative but to
sink under fate, or to rise above it. His whole outfit was gone:
his valiant mountain men were one-third dead, many crippled: he was
penniless, and in a strange place. He resolved to go forward--_nulla
vestigia retrorsum_: to raise another outfit, and turn the mountains
by the Gila. In a few days it was all done--men, horses, arms,
provisions--all acquired; and the expedition resumed. But it was
no longer the tried band of mountain men on whose vigilance, skill
and courage he could rely to make their way through hostile tribes.
They were new men, and to avoid danger, not to overcome it, was his
resource. The Navahoes and Apaches had to be passed, and eluded--a
thing difficult to be done, as his party of thirty men and double
as many horses would make a trail, easy to be followed in the snow,
though not deep. He took an unfrequented course, and relied upon
the secrecy and celerity of his movements. The fourth night on the
dangerous ground the horses, picketed without the camp, gave signs
of alarm: they were brought within the square of fires, and the men
put on the alert. Daybreak came without visible danger. The camp
moved off: a man lagged a little behind, contrary to injunctions:
the crack of some rifles sent him running up. It was then clear that
they were discovered, and a party hovering round them. Two Indians
were seen ahead: they might be a decoy, or a watch, to keep the
party in view until the neighboring warriors could come in. Evasion
was no longer possible: fighting was out of the question, for the
whole hostile country was ahead, and narrow defiles to be passed
in the mountains. All depended upon the address of the commander.
Relying upon his ascendant over the savage mind, Frémont took his
interpreter, and went to the two Indians. Godey said he should not
go alone, and followed. Approaching them, a deep ravine was seen
between. The Indians beckoned him to go round by the head of the
ravine, evidently to place that obstacle between him and his men.
Symptoms of fear or distrust would mar his scheme: so he went boldly
round, accosted them confidently, and told his name. They had never
heard it. He told them they ought to be ashamed, not to know their
best friend; inquired for their tribe, which he wished to see: and
took the whole air of confidence and friendship. He saw they were
staggered. He then invited them to go to his camp where the men
had halted, and take breakfast with him. They said that might be
dangerous--that they had shot at one of his men that morning, and
might have killed him, and now be punished for it. He ridiculed the
idea of their hurting his men, charmed them into the camp, where
they ate, and smoked, and told their secret, and became messengers
to lead their tribe in one direction, while Frémont and his men
escaped by another; and the whole expedition went through without
loss, and without molestation. A subsequent winter expedition
completed the design of this one, so disastrously frustrated
by the mistake of a guide. Frémont went out again upon his own
expense--went to the spot where the guide had gone astray--followed
the course described by the mountain men--and found safe and easy
passes all the way to California, through a good country, and
upon the straight line of 38 and 39 degrees. It is the route for
the Central Pacific Railroad, which the structure of the country
invites, and every national consideration demands.