Page 173 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

42. Austerman, Sharps Rifles, p. 176.
43. Los Angeles Southern News, July 26, 1861, n.p., copying the Mesilla Times of June 23.
44. Mesilla Times, July 13, p. 2:5, August 27, 1861, p. 2, Charles S. Walker, Jr., “Confederate Govern- ment in Dona Ana County, as Shown in the Records of the Probate Court, 1861-1862,” New Mexico His- torical Review, Vol. 6 (July, 1931), p. 266 (hereafter cited as Walker, “Probate”). In August or Septem- ber, Catlett’s property was sold to satisfy a default
judgment of $390, plus costs, in favor of Thomas J. Mastin.
45. Austerman, Sharps Rifles, p. 179; Mesilla Times, July 20, 1861, p. 1:5, 2:1.
46. Mesilla Times, July 27, 1861, p. 1:3.
47. This event, so little known today, helped name Massacre Peak located within the confines of Cooke’s Canyon, and spawned Brian Garfield’s, Seven Brave Men (New York: Magnum Books, 1962), Will Henry’s, The Seven Men at Mimbres Springs (New York: Random House, 1958), and a number of serious, but hardly more accurate, ar- ticles in various magazines and journals. Contem- poraneous documents are sparse regarding the incident, and the span of time and embellishment of retold versions of the tragedy have served to mask and distort the most basic facts.
48. WilliamWallaceMills,FortyYearsatElPaso, 1858-1898, edited by Rex Strickland (El Paso: Carol Hertzog, 1962), pp. xv, 48-50 (hereafter cited as Mills, El Paso).
49. RoscoePlattConklingandMargaretB.Con- kling, The Butterfield Overland Mail, 1857-1869 2 Vols. (Glendale: A. H. Clark Co., 1947), Vol. 2, pp. 115-118, unfortunately made a complete misinterpretationofthelocationofthestagestation and incorrectly attributed the men’s last stand to havetakenplacethere. Othershaveplacedthe massacre site on a low ridge west of the spring
because of a small barricade constructed there. First, the shelter is much too small, and second, it had existed at least since November 1846 as Cooke in Senate Reports, 31st Congress, Special Session, Executive Document 2 (1849), p. 18, recorded it at thattime.
50. Again several sources, for example Bureau of Land Management, National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form (Las Cruces: United States Department of the Interior, August 12, 1977), p. 7-8, have concluded that the low saddle
near Massacre Peak was the site of the Freeman Thomas disaster because of two low barricades there, noted much earlier in Robert Eccleston, Over- land to California on the Southwestern Trail, 1849, edited by George P. Hammond and Edward H. Howes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950), p. 171, and the mass grave near the road. This was the burial site for eight Mexican drovers, as will be shown later.
51. Mesilla Times, July 27, p. 1, July 29, p. 1, August 3, 1861, n.p.
52. The best example of this is by Woodworth Clum, Apache Agent (Lincoln: University of Nebras- ka Press, 1978), p. 42; in a simple 15-word sentence, the author commits 4 major and 2 minor errors, without mentioning the more common errors of the men working for Butterfield or fleeing Texas for their lives.
53. Mills, El Paso, p. 53. Some such as Oury, Tucson Daily Star, July 27, 1879, n.p., claimed to have obtained their detailed information about the fight from Cochise or other Apaches that were involved. Numbers for Apache casualties ranged from 25 to over 175. The El Paso Herald, September 20, 1920, pp. 1:6, 4:5, reported the dedication of a monument
by Anson Mills in memory of the seven men. The monument still stands on the city library lawn and theplaqueunfortunatelyincludesseveralerrors.
54. Mesilla Times, August 3, 1861, n.p. This con- temporaneous source indicated that the men were buried by “[Alexandre] Daguerre and Thibault” afterhappeningonthescene.However,thiswasstill second-hand information and consideration must be given to others who claimed to have been involved in the interments.
55. Otherswhoclaimedtohaveburiedtheseven men are noted in Tcvis, Arizona, pp. 229-230; Smith, Oury,pp.119-120;EugeneO.Porter(ed.),“Letters Home, W. W. Mills Writes to His Family,” Password, Vol. 18 (Spring, 1972), p. 18 (hereafter cited as Porter, “Letters”); Thomas Edwin Farish, History of
Arizona 2 Vols. (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1915), Vol. 2, p. 60; and Williams, “Old Timer’s,” pp. 46-47.
56. WilliamBanningandGeorgeHughBanning, Six Horses (New York: The Century Co., 1930), p. 248.
57. Mesilla Times, August 17, 1861, p. 2:1; Martin Hardwick Hall, Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1960), p. 323
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