Page 144 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Congress gave Postmaster General Montgomery Blair authority to discontinue the southern route and move the contract to the central route where Butter- field was to resume operation July 1. On March 5 Texas seceded from the Union, and a week later service on route 12,578 was ordered terminated. A provision was made to compensate the Butterfield Line a month’s extra pay, $50,000, but after transfer- ring what stock and equipment he could and selling
some to George Henry Giddings, the extra money probably did not begin to cover Butterfield’s losses to the Indians and confiscations by the Texans. 19
It took some time to set the wheels in motion to inform the Butterfield Overland Mail Company of the new plans and for them to respond and transfer the operation of the line northward. In early March, about 25 miles east of Tucson, a driver was shot through the body. He was seriously wounded, but was expected to survive. A few days later another stage was attacked by Indians about 25 miles west of Apache Pass. This time, however, two soldiers riding in the stage jumped out and wounded two of
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the attackers before they fled.
Giddings now saw the possibility of recapturing the
mail and passenger business across the western por- tion of the southern United States. Why the govern- ment would move to establish a replacement for the contract transferred north is unclear. However, the fact that Giddings in past years had engaged Blair, now the Postmaster General, as his Washington lob- byist may have had something to do with the decision. In addition to Giddings’ new contract to extend his route from El Paso to California, back- dated to be effective from April 1, 1861, until June 30, 1865, Blair got Congress to pass a special $70,000
^I appropriation for back pay.“
Naturally, for these favors, the government wanted something in return. Giddings attended a private meeting with President Abraham Lincoln and was secretly sworn in as a member of the cabinet. Over his objections, he was then directed to carry a mes- sage to ex-Governor Sam Houston, an act that could have gotten him shot if the ploy were discovered. Lincoln wanted Houston to lead a counterrevolution in Texas. He was offered a general’s commission and authority to assume command of all federal troopsinthestate. Houstondeclined.
Regardless of the effective date of Giddings’ new contract there was some managerial inertia involved in establishing the line west of El Paso, Texas. The
Butterfield line, however, had an offsetting momen- tum to overcome in shutting down its operation. Anthony Elder, the conductor for the Mesilla-Tuc- son division, reported that in early April the stage was attacked by between 25 and 30 Apaches about 45 miles west of Tucson, and the wounded driver fell from the vehicle. The conductor for that division, William Willis, was asleep inside at the time but managed to climb to the box and take control. When Willis reached Tucson, 16 bullet holes and a large number of arrows were found in the coach. Willis indicated that had the team not been the fastest on the line, and the station a short distance away, he
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probably would not have made it through.
There was other evidence of Butterfield’s con- tinued operation on the line and the pending disrup- tion to some of the employees’ personal lives. Antonio Torres, residing at Cooke’s Spring, placed the following advertisement in the Mesilla paper: “Pay Up. All those indebted to the undersigned are requested to come forward and pay their indebted-
24
He had been listed in the 1860 census, taken less than eight months previously, as a tailor living at one of the
25
Evidently he was trying to settle his financial affairs prior to being transferred
out of the area.
Not all of the violence at the time was attributable
to the Apaches. Sometime in the week prior to April 13, 1861, four people had been found dead near Magdalena Canyon, about half-way between Mesilla andCooke’sSpring. ThevictimswereWilliam Watts, co-owner of the Hot Springs with A. Kuhne, J. W. Hagar, (surveyor and Pinos Altos sawmill operator), and two unidentified Mexican women, a mother and daughter.
George Milton Frazer, operating his express line between Mesilla and the mining community of Pinos Altos, found the victims beside the road. Apparent- ly a peon had been found hanged in a bosque near Hot Springs, and the Mexicans accused Watts and Hagar of the deed. The attack was supposedly en- gineered by a man named Guerra, who was later
Civil Unrest and the Gathering Storm
130
ness to enable me to pay my debts.”
“Overland” stations.
reported killed during the fight.
26
Robert P. Kelley,
Hagar’s cousin, offered a $500 reward for the mur-
derers, but there was no evidence that it was ever
27
claimed.
As Giddings put things in motion to establish his
mail line, another tragic event befell his family. On April 21, John James Giddings arrived in Mesilla to