My last military service was as quartermaster and commissary at District
headquarters at Santa Fe, in 1862. In the summer of that year, General
Canby granted me a leave of absence for sixty days, and I visited
Washington City and received from President Lincoln my commission as
collector of customs along with his personal thanks and good wishes.
The collection district of Paso del Norte then comprised only the
Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, the collector’s office being at
Las Cruces, N. M. El Paso county belonged to the Galveston District,
with a deputy at El Paso—A. B. O’Bannon, a Confederate. But Congress, at
my suggestion, passed an act, approved March 3, 1863, attaching El Paso
county to that district, “Provided that the collector should reside at
El Paso.” Thus, by my efforts, El Paso became the permanent residence of
collectors of customs, and as a result, later on, obtained its fine
Government building! Col. Samuel J. Jones was then collector of customs
at Las Cruces. This Jones was prominent and in some respects a
remarkable character. He was the notorious “Sheriff Jones” during the
border troubles in Kansas in 1856, when the attempt was made to make
Kansas a slave State, and was then called a “border ruffian.” Jones was
a man of education, of fine personal appearance, and with a reputation
for courage which had never been questioned. It fell to my lot to be the
first to call him down, and I did it successfully and still have the
hostile letters which passed between us, but I refrain from recording
the particulars of that incident in my life. Jones had been appointed
collector of customs by President Buchanan, but had taken the side of
secession.
On my return from Washington, Jones refused to deliver to me the books
and property of the office, and correspondence, quarrels and threats
followed, and we became bitter enemies. But he yielded what I demanded.
Twenty years later I met Colonel Jones at Silver City, old, poor and
paralyzed, just able to walk about, but only able to articulate the
words “yes, yes,” and “no, no.” Knowing his condition, I gave him my
hand, which he grasped eagerly, and that night he signified to me that
he desired me to occupy the same room with him, which I did.
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