Page 190 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

abettedtheConfederates. Foreitherpoliticalor legitimate reasons their properties were seized and, in many cases, auctioned off to the highest bidder. TheOurybrothers’(GranvilleHendersonandWil- liam Sanders) freighting outfit and Silvester Mowry’s mining holdings in Tucson were among the first to suffer the consequences of their secessionist activities. Their properties were confiscated in 1862
SkillmanroseupwithaguninhishandandFrench
killed him. In the next few seconds two of Skillman’s
party were killed and two more were mortally
wounded. OneConfederate,WilliamM.“Bill”
Ford, an old friend of Ben Dowell, managed to 7
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escape, albeit clad only in his underwear.
George Giddings may not have lost his life to the war but he lost almost everything else. After closing his stage line, Giddings served as a Confederate officer during the remainder of the war, and acting as a purchasing agent, sold Texas cotton in Mexico and bought supplies for the Confederate army with the proceeds. He also claimed that he spent $200,000 in currency and $10,000 in gold of his own money in mounting and equipping his command. In addition to his later claims against the United States Government for losses, he said the Confederacy owed him back pay for the mail service and he was holding unpaid vouchers equaling $65,000 for 13, 12-mule freighting outfits and $30,000 for another
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train of 10 units.
Others who had backed the Confederate cause
encountered little difficulty living under the Stars and Stripes again. “Jack” Swilling had considerable
and were sold in Mesilla on July 18, 1864.
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By early August 1862 Company C of the First
California Volunteer Cavalry was camped at Simeon
Hart’s mill. This was only the first of a series of
setbacks for the man who had so ardently supported
the Southern cause. After General Carleton arrived
on August 16, Hart, “Ben” Dowell, James Wiley
Magoffin, the Gillett brothers (John Smith and
Henry Smith), Hugh Stephenson, and several others
lost their considerable holdings, at least temporarily,
to the military and New Mexico Territorial 65
tribunals.
General Carleton and many of the Union officers
were also involved in the redevelopment of the min- ing industry. Colonel George Bowie and Captain Charles Smith, in consort with W. W. Mills, gained temporary legal possession of Hugh Stephenson’s old silver mine. Carleton, Nelson H. Davis, Herbert M. Enos, William Bell, and others took over the copper mine at Santa Rita. Some disgruntled citizens accused them of using soldiers to protect the property. Others who had interests in the Pinos Altos mines, before or following their enlistment expirations, included Captains John D. Slocum and Charles P. Nichols, and Lieutenants Robert V. New- sham and Albert H. French. In French’s case, he and his partners did not forget their home when they named their consortium the Bay State Pinos Altos Mining Company. They did not forget their former commander either as they transferred 200 stock shares to Carleton for the sum of a dollar.
During the Civil War, several Confederates suf- fered the consequences of their former or continued allegiance to the South. Henry Skillman continued to operate in the El Paso area, and set up a courier service for Confederate intelligence information that had tendrils extending from San Antonio to California. Captain French and 25 Californians sur- rounded Skillman and a party of 10 Confederates on the night of April 15, 1864, at Spencer’s Ranch a mile below Presidio, Texas. At midnight French entered the camp and demanded surrender.
luck in the new gold fields in Arizona
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In 1866
The Backwash of the Civil War
176
there was another gold rush at Pinos Altos, and
Virgil Mastin, with partners J. Edgar Griggs, Samuel
J. Jones, Joseph Reynolds and J. Amberg organized
the Pinos Altos Mining Company. Either
separately or in conjunction with the others, Mastin
bought a 15-stamp mill and a new saw mill in July.
Mastinalsosetupafreightline. InOctober1866
one of his teams was hauling flour from Janos to Fort
Cummings, complete with a military escort from that
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fort.
Bethel Coopwood was another Confederate of-
ficer who became involved in freighting and other businesses after the war. He advertised a freight service to start April 15, 1866. Although he initially intended to use pack mules he also prepared to
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experiment with another form of transportation. At the close of the Civil War there were still 34 camels at Camp Verde, Texas. In March 1866 Coopwood had submitted the highest ($31 each) of three sealed bids and intended to retrain the beasts to carry heavy packs. Although Coopwood also ran a stage line to El Paso for a few months, before selling out to Benjamin Franklin Ficklin, there was
no evidence that his freight line, using either mules
or camels, was ever established west of El Paso.
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