Letter from General W. T. Sherman, and from General J. F. Rusling.
In closing the life of Kit Carson, it will be appropriate to add two
letters, which were furnished at our request:
912 GARRISON AVENUE, ST. LOUIS, MO., JUNE 25, 1884.
"Kit Carson first came into public notice by Fremont's Reports of the
Exploration of the Great West about 1842-3. You will find mention of
Kit Carson in my memoirs, vol. I, p. 46, 47, as bringing to us the first
overland mail to California in his saddle bags. I saw but little of him
afterwards till after the Civil War, when, in 1866, I was the Lieutenant
General commanding the Military Division of the Missouri, with
headquarters in St. Louis, and made a tour of my command, including what
are now Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. Reaching Fort Garland, New
Mexico, in September of October, 1866, I found it garrisoned by some
companies of New Mexico Volunteers, of which Carson was Colonel or
commanding officer. I stayed with him some days, during which we had a
sort of council with the Ute Indians, of which the chief Ouray was the
principal feature, and over whom Carson exercised a powerful influence.
"Carson then had his family with him--wife and half a dozen children,
boys and girls as wild and untrained as a brood of Mexican mustangs. One
day these children ran through the room in which we were seated, half
clad and boisterous, and I inquired, 'Kit, what are you doing about your
children?'
"He replied: 'That is a source of great anxiety; I myself had no
education,' (he could not even write, his wife always signing his name
to his official reports). 'I value education as much as any man, but I
have never had the advantage of schools, and now that I am getting old
and infirm, I fear I have not done right by my children.'
"I explained to him that the Catholic College, at South Bend, Indiana,
had, for some reason, given me a scholarship for twenty years, and that
I would divide with him--that is let him send two of his boys for five
years each. He seemed very grateful and said he would think of it.
"My recollection is that his regiment was mustered out of service that
winter, 1866-7, and that the following summer, 1867, he (Carson) went to
Washington on some business for the Utes, and on his return toward New
Mexico, he stopped at Fort Lyon, on the upper Arkansas, where he died.
His wife died soon after at Taos, New Mexico, and the children fell to
the care of a brother in law, Mr. Boggs, who had a large ranche on the
Purgation near Fort Lyon. It was reported of Carson, when notified that
death was impending, that he said, 'Send William, (his eldest son) to
General Sherman who has promised to educate him.' Accordingly, some time
about the spring of 1868, there came to my house, in St. Louis, a stout
boy with a revolver, Life of Kit Carson by Dr. Peters, United States
Army, about $40 in money, and a letter from Boggs, saying that in
compliance with the request of Kit Carson, on his death bed, he had sent
William Carson to me. Allowing him a few days of vacation with my own
children, I sent him to the college at South Bend, Ind., with a letter
of explanation, and making myself responsible for his expenses. He was
regularly entered in one of the classes, and reported to me regularly. I
found the 'Scholarship' amounted to what is known as 'tuition,' but
for three years I paid all his expenses of board, clothing, books, &c.,
amounting to about $300 a year. At the end of that time, the Priest
reported to me that Carson was a good natured boy, willing enough,
but that he had no taste or appetite for learning. His letters to
me confirmed this conclusion, as he could not possibly spell. After
reflection, I concluded to send him to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the
care of General Langdon C. Easton, United States Quartermaster, with
instructions to employ him in some capacity in which he could earn his
board and clothing, and to get some officer of the garrison to teach him
just what was necessary for a Lieutenant of Cavalry. Lieutenant Beard,
adjutant of the Fifth Infantry did this. He (William Carson) was
employed, as a 'Messenger,' and, as he approached his twenty-first year,
under the tuition of Lieutenant Beard, he made good progress. Meantime
I was promoted to General in Chief at Washington, and about 1870, when
Carson had become twenty-one years of age, I applied in person to the
President, General Grant, to give the son of Kit Carson, the appointment
of Second Lieutenant Ninth United States Cavalry, telling him somewhat
of the foregoing details. General Grant promptly ordered the appointment
to issue, subject to the examination as to educational qualifications,
required by the law. The usual board of officers was appointed at Fort
Leavenworth and Carson was ordered before it. After careful examination,
the board found him deficient in reading, writing and arithmetic. Of
course he could not be commissioned. I had given him four years of
my guardianship, about $1,000 of my own money, and the benefit of my
influence, all in vain. By nature, he was not adapted to 'modern uses.'
I accordingly wrote him that I had exhausted my ability to provide for
him, and advised him to return to his uncle Boggs on the Purgation to
assist him in his cattle and sheep ranche.
"I heard from him by letter once or twice afterward, in one of which he
asked me to procure for him the agency for the Utes. On inquiry at the
proper office in Washington, I found that another person had secured
the place of which I notified him, and though of late years I have often
been on the Purgation, and in the Ute country, I could learn nothing of
the other children of Kit Carson, or of William, who for four years was
a sort of ward to me.
"Since the building of railroads in that region, the whole character of
its population is changed, and were Kit Carson to arise from his grave,
he could not find a buffalo, elk or deer, where he used to see millions.
He could not even recognize the country with which he used to be so
familiar, or find his own children, whom he loved, and for whose welfare
he felt so solicitous in his later days.
"Kit Carson was a good type of a class of men most useful in their day,
but now as antiquated as Jason of the Golden Fleece, Ulysses of Troy,
the Chevalier La Salle of the Lakes, Daniel Boone of Kentucky, Irvin
Bridger and Jim Beckwith of the Rockies, all belonging to the dead past.
"Yours Truly,
"W. T. SHERMAN."
"TRENTON, N. J., June 23, 1884.
"In accordance with your request to give my recollections of Kit Carson,
I would say that I met and spent several days with him in September,
1866, at and near Fort Garland, Colorado, on the headwaters of the Rio
Grande. I was then Brevet Brigadier General and Inspector United States
Volunteers, on a tour of inspection of the military depots and posts in
that region and across to the Pacific. General Sherman happened there at
the same time, on like duty as to his Military Division, and our joint
talks, as a rule, extended far into the night and over many subjects.
'Kit' was then Brevet Brigadier General United States Volunteers, and
in command of Fort Garland, and a wide region thereabouts--mostly
Indian--which he knew thoroughly. Fort Garland was a typical frontier
post, composed of log huts chinked with mud, rough but comfortable, and
in one of these Kit then lived with his Mexican wife and several half
breed children.
"He was then a man apparently about fifty years of age. From what I had
read about him, I had expected to see a small, wiry man, weather-beaten
and reticent; but found him to be a medium sized, rather stoutish, and
quite talkative person instead. His hair was already well-silvered, but
his face full and florid. You would scarcely regard him, at first sight,
as a very noticeable man, except as having a well knit frame and full,
deep chest. But on observing him more closely, you were struck with
the breadth and openness of his brow, bespeaking more than ordinary
intelligence and courage; with his quick, blue eye, that caught
everything at a glance apparently--an eye beaming with kindliness and
benevolence, but that could blaze with anger when aroused; and with
his full, square jaw and chin, that evidently could shut as tight as
Sherman's or Grant's when necessary. With nothing of the swashbuckler
or Buffalo Bill--of the border ruffian or the cowboy--about him, his
manners were as gentle, and his voice as soft and sympathetic, as a
woman's. What impressed one most about his face was its rare kindliness
and charity--that here, at last, was a natural gentleman, simple as a
child but brave as a lion. He soon took our hearts by storm, and the
more we saw of him the more we became impressed with his true manliness
and worth. Like everybody else on the border, he smoked freely, and at
one time drank considerably; but he had quit drinking years before, and
said he owed his excellent health and preeminence, if he had any, to
his habits of almost total abstinence. In conversation he was slow and
hesitating at first, approaching almost to bashfulness, often seemingly
at a loss for words; but, as he warmed up, this disappeared, and
you soon found him talking glibly, and with his hands and fingers as
well--rapidly gesticulating--Indian fashion. He was very conscientious,
and in all our talks would frequently say: 'Now, stop gentlemen! Is this
right?' 'Ought we to do this?' 'Can we do that?' 'Is this like human
nature?' or words to this effect, as if it was the habit of his mind
to test everything by the moral law. I think that was the predominating
feature of his character--his perfect honesty and truthfulness--quite as
much as his matchless coolness and courage. Said Sherman to me one day
while there: 'His integrity is simply perfect. The red skins know it,
and would trust Kit any day before they would us, or the President,
either!' And Kit well returned their confidence, by being their
steadfast, unswerving friend and ready champion.
"He talked freely of his past life, unconscious of its extraordinary
character. Born in Kentucky, he said, he early took to the plains and
mountains, and joined the hunters and trappers, when he was so young he
could not set a trap. When he became older, he turned trapper himself,
and trapped all over our territories for beaver, otter, etc., from the
Missouri to the Pacific, and from British America to Mexico. Next he
passed into Government employ, as an Indian scout and guide, and as such
piloted Fremont and others all over the Plains and through the Rocky and
Sierra Nevada Mountains. Fremont, in his reports, surrounded Kit's name
with a romantic valor, but he seems to have deserved it all, and more.
His good sense, his large experience, and unfaltering courage, were
invaluable to Fremont, and it is said about the only time the Pathfinder
went seriously astray among the Mountains was when he disregarded his
(Kit's) advice, and endeavored to force a passage through the Rockies
northwest of Fort Garland. Kit told him the mountains could not be
crossed at that time of the year; and, when Fremont nevertheless
insisted on proceeding, he resigned as guide. The Pathfinder, however,
went stubbornly forward, but got caught in terrible snowstorms, and
presently returned--half of his men and animals having perished outright
from cold and hunger. Next Kit became United States Indian Agent, and
made one of the best we ever had. Familiar with the language and customs
of the Indians, he frequently spent months together among them without
seeing a white man, and indeed became a sort of half Indian himself. In
talking with us, I noticed he frequently hesitated for the right English
word; but when speaking bastard Spanish (Mexican) or Indian, with
the Ute Indians there, he was as fluent as a native. Both Mexican and
Indian, however, are largely pantomime, abounding in perpetual grimace
and gesture, which may have helped him along somewhat. Next, when the
rebellion broke out, he became a Union soldier, though the border was
largely Confederate. He tendered his services to Mr. Lincoln, who
at once commissioned him Colonel, and told him to take care of the
frontier, as the regulars there had to come East to fight Jeff Davis.
Kit straightway proceeded to raise the First Regiment of New Mexico
Volunteers, in which he had little difficulty, as the New Mexicans knew
him well, and had the utmost confidence in him. With these, during the
war, he was busy fighting hostile Indians, and keeping others friendly,
and in his famous campaign against the Navajos, in New Mexico, with only
six hundred frontier volunteers captured some nine thousand prisoners.
The Indians withdrew into a wild canyon, where no white man, it was
said, had ever penetrated, and believed to be impregnable. But Kit
pursued them from either end, and attacked them with pure Indian
strategy and tactics; and the Navajos finding themselves thus
surrounded, and their supplies cut off, outwitted by a keener fighter
than themselves, surrendered at discretion. Then he did not slaughter
them, but marched them to a goodly reservation, and put them to work
herding and planting, and they had continued peaceable ever since.
"Kit seemed thoroughly familiar with Indian life and character, and
it must be conceded, that no American of his time knew our aborigines
better--if any so well. It must be set down to their credit, that he
was their stout friend--no Boston philanthropist more so. He did not
hesitate to say, that all our Indian troubles were caused originally by
bad white men, if the truth were known, and was terribly severe on the
brutalities and barbarities of the border. He said the Indians were very
different from what they used to be, and were yearly becoming more so
from contact with border ruffians and cowboys. He said he had lived for
years among them with only occasional visits to the settlements, and
he had never known an Indian to injure a Pale Face, where he did not
deserve it; on the other hand, he had seen an Indian kill his brother
even for insulting a white man in the old times. He insisted that
Indians never commit outrages unless they are first provoked to them by
the borderers, and that many of the peculiar and special atrocities
with which they are charged are only their imitation of the bad acts
of wicked white men. He pleaded for the Indians, as 'pore ignorant
critters, who had no learnin', and didn't know no better,' whom we were
daily robbing of their hunting grounds and homes, and solemnly asked:
'What der yer 'spose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us,
thinks of these things?' He was particularly severe upon Col. Chivington
and the Sand Creek massacre of 1864, which was still fresh in the public
mind, said he; 'jist to think of that dog Chivington, and his dirty
hounds, up thar at Sand Creek! Whoever heerd of sich doings 'mong
Christians!'
"'The pore Indians had the Stars and Stripes flying over them, our old
flag thar, and they'd bin told down to Denver, that so long as they kept
that flying they'd be safe enough. Well, then, one day along comes that
durned Chivington and his cusses. They'd bin out several day's huntin'
Hostiles, and couldn't find none nowhar, and if they had, they'd have
skedaddled from 'em, you bet! So they jist lit upon these Friendlies,
and massacreed 'em--yes, sir, literally massacreed 'em--in cold blood,
in spite of our flag thar--yes, women and little children, even! Why,
Senator Foster told me with his own lips (and him and his Committee come
out yer from Washington, you know, and investigated this muss), that
that thar durned miscreant and his men shot down squaws, and blew the
brains out of little innocent children--pistoled little papooses in
the arms of their dead mothers, and even worse than this!--them durned
devils! and you call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? and pore Indians
savages!'
"'I tell you what, friends; I don't like a hostile Red Skin any more
than you do. And when they are hostile, I've fit 'em--fout 'em--and
expect to fight 'em--hard as any man. That's my business. But I never
yit drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would.
'Taint nateral for men to kill women and pore little children, and none
but a coward or a dog would do it. Of course when we white men do sich
awful things, why these pore ignorant critters don't know no better than
to foller suit. Pore things! Pore things! I've seen as much of 'em as
any man livin', and I can't help but pity 'em, right or wrong! They
once owned all this country, yes, Plains and Mountains, buffalo and
everything, but now they own next door to nuthin, and will soon be
gone.'
"Alas, poor Kit! He has already 'gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds.' But
the Indians had no truer friend, and Kit Carson would wish no prouder
epitaph than this. In talking thus he would frequently get his grammar
wrong, and his language was only the patois of the Border; but there
was an eloquence in his eye, and a pathos in his voice, that would
have touched a heart of stone, and a genuine manliness about him at all
times, that would have won him hosts of friends anywhere. And so, Kit
Carson, good friend, brave heart, generous soul, hail and farewell!
"Hoping these rough recollections may serve your purpose, I remain
"Very respectfully,
"Your obedient servant,
"JAMES F. RUSLING."
The following tribute to the matchless scout, hunter and guide is from
the Salt Lake Tribune:
He wrote his own biography and left it where the edition will never
grow dim. The alphabet he used was made of the rivers, the plains, the
forests, and the eternal heights. He started in his youth with his face
to the West; started toward where no trails had been blazed, where there
was naught to meet him but the wilderness, the wild beast, and the still
more savage man. He made his lonely camps by the rivers, and now it is
a fiction with those who sleep on the same grounds that the waters in
their flow murmur the great pathfinder's name. He followed the water
courses to their sources, and guided by them, learned where the
mountains bent their crests to make possible highways for the feet
of men. He climbed the mountains and "disputed with the eagles of the
crags" for points of observation; he met the wild beast and subdued
him; he met the savage of the plains and of the hills, and, in his own
person, gave him notice of his sovereignty in skill, in cunning and
in courage. To the red man he was the voice of fate. In him they saw a
materialized foreboding of their destiny. To them he was a voice crying
the coming of a race against which they could not prevail; before which
they were to be swept away.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Life of Kit Carson, by Edward S. Ellis