Page 50 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

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Jacob Snively.
ing a bunch of undisciplined civilians across an un- charted wilderness.49
Some of Price’s mounted Missourians had reached Santa Fe on August 2 and Cooke was concerned
50
He sent word that if they were not in Santa Fe by Oc- tober 10, the Battalion would be rejected from ser- vice. This dispatch reached Lieutenant Smith and the Mormons on October 3 and created some deep
concern.51
Previously, on September 16, at Ingalls (by the
Arkansas River in present-day Kansas), a group of
sick Mormon soldiers and several families had been
separated from the Battalion and sent to present-
day Pueblo, Colorado, via Bent’s Fort. The volun-
teers claimed they had been assured that this would
not be considered and protested, but to no avail.
The disgruntled remainder marched on to Sante Fe
viathenearlywaterlessCimarroncutoff. Captain
Nelson Higgins (Company D) was placed in
52 charge
A special detail was made up of 65 men from each company to implement a forced march to Santa Fe and fulfilled the require- ments established by Cooke by reaching the
53
for this duty. Later three Company C men, Ser- geants Joel Judkin Terrell (or Terrill) and David Wilkin and Corporal Jabez Townsend Nowlin decided to accept a reduction to the ranks and to leave with the rejected persons.
Cooke’s efforts to get the Battalion ready were
delayed because the commissary’s salt pork and
beef cattle did not arrive until October 16 and 17,
57
Now he was saddled with wetnurs-
about the delay in the arrival of the Battalion.
city on October 9.
The remainder, includ-
ing Whitworth, struggled along as best they
could and attained their interim destination
onOctober1354 Whenthelastofthestrag-
glers wandered in, the troops at Santa Fe,
commanded by Colonel Alexander William
Doniphan (Figure 17), gave the men a 100-
gun salute in honor of the occasion, “but
Cooke grimly reserved the right to give them
55 hell.”
When Cooke assumed command from Smith, his first concern was the obvious debilitated condition of the men and the large number of non-combatants still with the column. He immediately set about cull- ing the Battalion a second time for the com- ing ordeal. According to Cooke’s report, 486 men made it to Santa Fe, and of these he found more than 80 unfit for the an- ticipated long march. He sent them and most of the accompanying families, a group of 20 women and children, and all 20 of the allocated laundresses to winter quarters near what is today Pueblo, Colorado. Cap- tain James Brown (Company C) was detailed
Figure 17. General Alexander William Doniphan. Photo courtesy of the Museum of New Mexico, #7174.
36
The Mormon Battalion
He now lost little time in finishing preparations for the march. The guides advised Cooke to take provisions for 120 days, but he countered that 60 days’ worth was as much as the teams could handle. Actually, the 60-day supply included only flour, sugar, coffee, and salt. There were only 30 days’ worth of salt pork and 20 of soap. Considering the scarcity of water along the way, the
lack of soap was probably not a problem.
There were a total of six ox-team wagons for the Battalion; each of the companies had three mule- drawnwagons;andthequartermaster(Lieutenant Andrew J. Smith), paymaster (Major Jerimiah H.
respectively.