Page 146 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

difficulties” as some had envisioned. At Stein’s Sta-
tion, Cochise was waiting for them and before long
added their lives and weapons to his victory inven-
tory. For these men and his brother’s party, Gid-
dings later put in a claim to the government for 13
Colt pistols and 13 Sharps rifles for this station
36 alone.
Cochise was apparently not satisfied with isolated raids against the mail line. He proceeded down the road ahead of the two mail company caravans and systematically destroyed all of the stations but one, leaving more than 30 men dead, forage burned, and at least 6 coaches and much other equipment destroyed. In the process, he procured many Colt revolvers and Sharps breach-loading rifles for his warriors. Giddings and Skillman paused at each station to bury the remains of the men and salvage what little property they could. In about a month, Giddings would be 38 years old; over the past three years he had lost two brothers and more than $200,000 and had accumulated outstanding debts
*in
nearly that large.
It was hard to believe that in the midst of all the
Indian raids a moderate-sized emigrant train could pass through from California unmolested. Never- theless, on May 23, ten families with 37 men, 11 wagons, and a herd of 150 head of stock passed through Mesilla for Texas. Two of the families, who were probably secessionists moving back to Texas, decided to locate in the Mesilla Valley.
It was probably the mid-June Giddings mail coach,
leaving Mesilla a few days behind schedule, that ran
into a severe fight at San Simon on the 27th. A Mr.
Jones indicated that six men kept up a running fight
with about 40 Apaches for several miles. The In-
dians were armed with revolvers and Sharps rifles,
taken no doubt when they raided and destroyed the
stations along the line. Three Apaches were
believed to have been killed and three more serious- on
ly wounded.
Despite the continued obstacles, Giddings con-
tinued to make his mail line work. Under William
D. Skillman’s supervision, the mail line operated its
own ferry at the ford between Mesilla and Fort
40
Fillmore.
scheduled for twice a month but was not functioning regularly, if at all. The service to San Antonio and New Orleans, however, operated twice a week. On June 10, 1861, Henry Skillman arrived in Mesilla with the first Giddings’ delivery of California mail.
The second westbound mail left Mesilla on the 18th, and it was expected that regular trips would now be
41
42 San Antonio postmaster
From other reports, it was obvious that the Apache
troubles could do nothing but get worse. It was
reported that the Chiricahua, Coyotero, and
Mimbres Apaches were assembled in great numbers
at Fronteras in Sonora, Mexico. They were making
peace with the Mexicans and were trading with
43
The service to California remained
It might have been this same stage that conductor
Freeman Thomas outfitted for the return trip. He
departed Mesilla July 20 with driver John Portell
and five other fighting men to make up the usual
seven, in this case a very unlucky number (Figure
35). The escort for the coach consisted of Joseph
Roacher (or Roescher), Mat Champion, Robert
Civil Unrest and the Gathering Storm
132
However, Giddings was informed by the federal government that his contract would end after July 1, 1861, and if he wanted to contract with the Confederacy, he would have to submit a bid to the
possible.
It was a standard procedure for the Apaches to make peace on one side of the border while they waged war on the other.
Giddings’ was not the only stage line out of Mesilla
that was in trouble. One much smaller outfit, run by
C. C. Catlett, was operating between Mesilla and
Pinos Altos. It received a severe blow to its operat-
ing capital on January 10, 1861, when it lost the
government subsidy for mail carried. Despite an
established surcharge of 25 cents per letter, imposed
on all persons using the service, disaster struck. On
July 13, several people, including Thomas J. Mastin,
brought suit against the line and attached Catlett’s
property until he satisfied their claims. However, he
continued to operate the line for another month or
44
more.
A few days before the fall of Fort Fillmore, on July
25, 1861, Giddings’ West Coast representative, Robert E. Doyle, managed to send a final mail through to Mesilla from San Diego. The stage ar- rived from the west on July 18 and brought newspapers from Los Angeles and San Francisco with dates as late as June 27. Giddings had just been awarded a new contract, from Texas for the con- tinuation of the semiweekly service between El Paso and San Antonio, and it was his intention to initiate
them.
a weekly service between California and Mesilla.
45
Aveline (or Avlin), John Wilson, and Emmett 46
These men were about to bequeath their
Mills.
lives to another bloody page in Overland Mail his-