Page 107 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Before the road builders reached Franklin, reports had filtered back to the Interior Department that Leach had been ‘frisking, gambling, and frolicking” to the discredit of the expedition and that govern- ment equipment was being used surreptitiously by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail contractor. 23 The Department assigned Welcome B. Sayles, an agent of the Post Office Department, to investigate the charges. Sayles determined that the former charge was a gross exaggeration, that Leach had played only a few hands of cards with Army officers at Fort Davis and had won and lost like a gentleman. He likewise found the collusion allegations without foundation.
However, after arriving in Mesilla and examining the financial accounts, Sayles found evidence of ir- regularity. In the procurement process, Leach’s as- sistant Woods had instructed his underlings to persuade dealers to sign blank vouchers or to pencil in the amounts tendered for supplies or equipment. There were other discrepancies including claims by laborers that they had not received the amount of wages recorded in the official ledgers. Based on the evidence, Woods had illegally profited more than $3,000 and was arrested on November 17, 1858. Leach stood by his friend and even tried to cover up for him in some of the dealings.
As a result of this misplaced support, Leach was
Santa Fe through Dona Ana, Cooke’s Spring, Tuc- son, and Yuma.
Leach’s wagon road opened the Southwest to
major freighting efforts that had previously been too
costly. Overtheroad,goodscouldflowfromMis-
souri and the east to New Mexico, Arizona, Califor-
nia, and northern Mexico. The road gave the
Southwest what the Mississippi River had given the
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midwest.
smoother as thousands of emigrants, the Overland Mail Companies, and army supply wagons traveled between Fort Thorn or Fort Fillmore and Fort Buchanan, south of Tucson, via Cooke’s Spring. Fort Buchanan, until about 1858 when the garrison was cut in half, had 22 wagons with teams, and men
29 to support all of them.
The San Antonio-San Diego Mail Company
also indicted on May 1859.24 16,
The government had experimented rather half- heartedly with mail routes to the west coast in the early and middle 1850s. Congress in 1854 and 1855 had established a mail link to Stockton, California, from Independence, Missouri, via Albuquerque and a second California route, in via Salt Lake
In addition, as a federal employee, Leach was held accountable for any differences between the vouchers and drafts in the double-entry bookkeeping method used to draw on government funds. 25 Leach returned to his home in California following the indictment and proceeded to prepare his defense. However, the trial was postponed, and the Attorney General even- tually dropped the charge. The Interior Depart- ment was also prepared to compromise on the issue, and reduced the amount Leach and his bondsmen were to pay from $23,000 to slightly more than
also 1854,
City. The latter mail route failed by 1856, but the
$13,000.
While Leach and Hutton worked on the Franklin-
Fort Yuma road across New Mexico, five other roads were built or improved in the Territory by the Army Engineers. One was constructed from the village of Canada to Abiquiu northwest of Espanola, and another from Albuquerque to Tecolote (a few miles south of present-day Las Vegas). Three other roads radiated from Santa Fe to Fort Union, Taos, and Dona Ana.“ By 1858 there were good roads from Missouri to California via either El Paso or
operating as late as 1859.
In California, staging had developed quickly, and
in the early to middle 1850s, James Birch had built a transportation empire and was president of the California Stage Company headquartered in Sacramento. His routes were extensive, and until the establishment of the transcontinental routes in the late 1850s, his line between Portland and San Diego was the country’s longest. He was a mil- lionaire when he stepped down from his role of leadership in February 1855 and returned east to concentrate on winning the first trancontinental mail
31
route, if Congress were ever to pass the legislation. In the south central states there were numerous companies engaged in staging, with San Antonio, Texas, the transportation hub of the entire area. The first mail contract to operate westward from San Antonio had been let in 1850 to veteran stage operator Henry Skillman, and by December 1851, he was advertising a passenger service to El Paso del
Chapter 4
93
The roadbed was packed tighter and
former, subsidized at $80,000 per year, was still
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