Page 148 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

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August 2, 1861, by order of Congress.
On August 12 Giddings, not yet aware of the Con-
gressional order suspending his contract, again tried to push mail through to California. Henry Skillman left Mesilla with an escort of 13 (or perhaps 15) men of Captain Bethel Coopwood’s San Elizario Spy Company under Confederate Second Lieutenant Levi Southerland. It was Skillman’s intention to withdraw the stock and men from the line until the
57 Apache situation had calmed down.
At or about the same time, the terminus of the Southern Mail Route from San Antonio was changed from El Paso to Mesilla, and plans were madetoresumethelegtoCalifornia.TheCalifornia segment,however,couldnotbereestablisheduntil Confederate troops neutralized the Indians. Gid- dings must not have had confidence in Lieutenant Colonel Baylor’s ability to accomplish this, because his plans called for a delay of about two months. 58 Nevertheless, some mail from the west continued to
arrive before all communication by mail coach be- tween Mesilla and California ceased. On August 24, the local paper erroneously announced that the westernmailhadarrivedonFridaythe19th59
Giddings, at this time, was back in San Antonio negotiating for a contract with the Confederate mail service. On August 28, he was awarded route 8,075 that included service to Mesilla and San Diego. As
%
with his previous contract with the federal govern-
fields and become a respected judge. In J anuary and early February he was musing over information reported in the newspapers. At first he thought that the situation looked favorable for the Union but required a compromise he was not certain could be negotiated. About three weeks later he had become much more pessimistic and, in writing his friend Edward M. Samuel, expressed a consideration that many of the Californians harbored in their hearts:
The North I consider to be wrong, on the vital issue, and the South is right I think. And still, like yourself. Iam for the Union. . . . Who can foretellthefortuneofournobleState? Must shefalltotheNorth? WillshegototheSouth? Shall she stand up proudly -the Pacific Republic! ... I will not stop to calculate what good company she might easily bring around her in the shape of Oregon and Utah, Arizona, and Sonora, and the ’isles of the sea.
At the other end of the Southern Emigrant Road, Simeon Hart and others were advocating a similar separationfortheirstate. Harthadbeenappointed one of the commissioners for the Sovereign and Independent State of Texas by the secession conven- tion held at San Antonio. He wrote the Mesilla
Times strongly suggesting that a secession conven- tion be held in Mesilla on March 16. This was accomplished, and the attendees were addressed by another appointed commissioner, Philemon Thomas Herbert, and his law partner, V. P. Claude Jones. Under the orchestration of presiding officer James A. Lucas, the attendees voted unanimously to secede, condemning the Republican party, breaking with the Union, and requesting to join the Con- federacy65 Aweeklater,asimilarmeetingwasheld in Tucson.
The delegates to the Mesilla and the earlier Texas secession conventions had many concerns in com- mon regarding the Southwest. If war were to be conducted, the South lacked two necessary factors. There were no major population centers from which to draw manpower, and the South had few industrial complexes capable of manufacturing the required materiel. At least the second of these two conditions could be offset if arms, munitions, and other military paraphernalia could be purchased overseas. This
required specie (gold or silver coin) of which the South also had a limited supply. Therefore it looked
ment, it was to be backdated to April l.
60
However,
there is no evidence that the western division of the
mail was ever reestablished. The turmoil created by
the Indians apparently caused too many problems,
not to mention trying to run a mail line that spanned
territory controlled by two governments engaged in
Civil War. Giddings claimed in later years that be-
tween 1857 and 1861, the Indians killed 44 of his
61
men.
During the first half of 1861 there was violence
between the Indians and the Americans, and politi- cal fratricide within the latter. In fact, the political turmoil was a contributing factor to the other distur- bances. On January 24 a mass meeting was held at Burchville (soon to be renamed Pinos Altos). Many of those attending freely expressed their opinions,
62 January 24, the Texas Lone Star flag was flying over
63
Mesilla and Burchville.
In far-away California, Benjamin Ignatius Hayes,
the forty-niner from Missouri, had quit the gold
and southern rights were fully endorsed.
By
Civil Unrest and the Gathering Storm
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