Tucson was garrisoned by about 200 Mexican soldiers, with two small brass
fieldpieces, a concentration of the garrisons of Tubac, Santa Cruz and
Fronteras. After some brief parley, the Mexican commander, Captain
Comaduron, refusing to surrender, left the village, compelling most of
its inhabitants to accompany him. No resistance whatever was made. When
the Battalion marched in, the Colonel took pains to assure the populace
that all would be treated with kindness. He sent the Mexican commander a
courteous letter for the Governor of Sonora, Don Manuel Gandara, who was
reported "disgusted and disaffected to the imbecile central government."
Little food was found for the men, but several thousand bushels of grain
had been left and were drawn upon. On December 17, the day after the
arrival of the command, the Colonel and after fifty men "passed up a
creek about five miles above Tucson toward a village (San Xavier), where
they had seen a large church from the hills they had passed over." The
Mexican commander reported that the Americans had taken advantage of him,
in that they had entered the town on Sunday, while he and his command and
most of the inhabitants were absent at San Xavier, attending mass.
The Pima villages were reached four days later. By Cooke the Indians were
called "friendly, guileless and singularly innocent and cheerful people."
In view of the prosperity of the Pima and Maricopa, Colonel Cooke
suggested that this would be a good place for the exiled Saints to
locate, and a proposal to this effect was favorably received by the
Indians. It is possible that his suggestion had something to do with the
colonizing by the Mormons of the upper part of the nearby Salt River
Valley in later years.
About January I, 1847, to lighten the load of the half-starved mules, a
barge was made by placing two wagon bodies on dry cottonwood logs and on
this 2500 pounds of provisions and corn were launched on the Gila River.
The improvised boat found too many sandbars, and most of its cargo had to
be jettisoned, lost in a time when rations had been reduced to a few
ounces a day per man. January 9 the Colorado River was reached, and the
command and its impedimenta were ferried over on the same raft
contrivance that had proven ineffective on the Gila.
Colonel Cooke, in his narrative concerning the practicability of the
route he had taken, said: "Undoubtedly the fine bottomland of the
Colorado, if not of the Gila, will soon be settled; then all difficulty
will be removed."
The Battalion had still more woe in its passage across the desert of
Southern California, where wells often had to be dug for water and where
rations were at a minimum, until Warner's ranch was reached, where each
man was given five pounds of beef a day, constituting almost the sole
article of subsistence. Tyler, the Battalion historian, insists that five
pounds is really a small allowance for a healthy laboring man, because
"when taken alone it is not nearly equal to mush and milk," and he
referred to an issuance to each of Fremont's men of ten pounds per day
of fat beef.