Page 170 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

commander of the Department of New Mexico. He did not receive the information until September 2 and did not assume command until September 18. He appointed Colonel West to take his place in
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southern New Mexico.
As early as May 24, while still enroute to Tucson,
Carleton had envisioned reopening the southern mail route to California. With Texas still unavail- able, he suggested running the route from Inde- pendence, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, via Santa Fe, Fort Thorn, Tucson, and Los Angeles. Shortly after assuming his new position, Carleton wrote Postmaster General Montgomery Blair on October 18 that he thought it was time to reopen the southern mail route. About the only change he made in his suggested route was to replace Fort Thorn with Mesilla as in earlier days. In his argu- ment he noted that the road was good, most of the stations were already built, and that many were in
tolerable repair. He already had contacted the Overland Mail Company’s San Francisco repre- sentative, Louis McLane, and had received an in- dication that, given a contract, service could resume
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This plan did not mature; there would be mail stages soon but not the Overland’s. The condition of “tolerable repair” must have meant that the walls were still standing, because all but one
of the stations had been “destroyed” in 1861. Despite Carleton’s intentions of controlling the Indians, throughout the Territory, and making the Southern Route to California again safe for stages, freighters, emigrants, and others, it would be months before either plan bore any fruit. Indeed, even when many of the Indians were later confined on his new reservation, the Mimbres and other southern Apaches would require considerable effort and many troops to keep them from controlling the en-
tire territorial area penetrated by the road.
The California Column
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within 60 days.