While serving at Fort Craig, as above related, and when the Texans were
advancing from El Paso nearer to Fort Craig, we had an outpost of two
companies at a village called Alamosa, thirty miles south of Craig, on
the Rio Grande, under command of Capt. —— Moore of the United States
cavalry. One morning General Roberts said to me: “Take an escort and go
and see what is going on at Alamosa.” That was all the order I had. I
went and met the younger officers, who told me that their captain was
“in a bad way” and had been for several days. Going to Captain Moore’s
quarters I found him in a hopeless state of intoxication. After
interrogating him until I was thoroughly satisfied of his condition, I
demanded his sword and ordered him to go with my escort and report to
General Roberts in arrest.
I charged the sergeant to take good care of him but did not think of his
pistol. When they arrived in view of Fort Craig Captain Moore drew his
pistol and “_blew out his own brains!_”
Captain Moore had the reputation of being a good officer, with only that
one fault, and of course the tragedy, and my connection with it made me
sad—but what else could I have done? My action was approved and
commended.
After this campaign General Roberts, being in Washington and testifying
before the Congressional Committee on the conduct of the war, said: “One
young man, W. W. Mills, who had the courage to stand up at El Paso and
Fort Bliss against the secessionists, was thrown into prison there and
kept in confinement and in irons for a long time and his life
threatened. He succeeded in making his escape and in reaching Fort
Craig, having undergone great hardship, being three days without
anything to eat and without water.
“Because of his loyalty and services General Canby appointed him an
acting lieutenant. He was my aide-de-camp at the battle of Valverde, and
his conduct there was not only meritorious, it was highly distinguished
for zeal, daring and efficiency.”—(Report of Committee, part 3d, page
271.)
I believe every young American of spirit has a natural desire for some
romantic adventure requiring unusual exertion and involving some danger.
I possessed this desire and it was fully gratified. That the Confederate
soldiers manifested magnificent courage and devotion I freely grant.
They once preserved my life from what General Scott termed “the fury of
the non-combatants;” but I am glad that my feeble efforts were put forth
in behalf of a cause which the civilized world has approved and the
righteousness of which no one now questions, I believe. I have met many
bitter partisans in my time, but I have never heard any one attempt to
defend or excuse the actions of Twiggs or Loring or Sibley or Garland or
any of the officers who connived at or assisted in and about the
disgraceful surrender of Major Lynde as related in these pages. Few
young men ever came home from the perils of camp, prison and battlefield
more victorious or better vindicated than did the writer to El Paso with
the Federal forces in 1862.
The very _charge_ against me then was that I had been the leader of the
Union people of this frontier.
While the advocates of secession had been more active and boisterous in
their display of power than the friends of the Government had been,
there was a strong latent Union sentiment even among the Americans, and
with the Mexicans it was universal; so that a large majority approved of
my course and rejoiced at my safe return.
Some who had bitterly opposed and even wronged me came to make peace
(and promises), and I repulsed no man, because I felt that I could
afford to be generous and desired to live in peace with my neighbors.
There were a few who still cherished the hope and belief that the
Confederate cause would ultimately succeed, and that the El Paso Valley
would be recaptured, and I would fare even worse than before; and the
very few of these latter who are yet living, while they do not now, as
then, denounce me as a “Union man” or as being “false to my home and
fireside,” still occasionally intimate that I must have been guilty of
_something_ wrong—but they do not specify what the wrong was.
I organized the Republican party in El Paso County, and for a decade I
controlled its politics. Yes; a political “boss,” if you will have it
so, but I never purchased any votes nor juggled any man out of an
election after he had won it, as was done in the case of Adolph Krakaner
after he had been fairly and honestly elected Mayor of El Paso in April,
1889.
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