Page 79 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

The Frontier Soldier and the Indians
The Ojo Caliente (Warm Springs) Apaches (also known as the Coppermine Apaches, Mimbres or Mimbrenos) and the Gila Apaches traditionally in- habited an area in southwestern New Mexico be- tween the Black Range and the present-day Mexican border, but ranged deep within Mexico when their mood or needs required it. According to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States was to prevent these nefarious penetrations of the new, and still disputed, boundary.
In the early territorial days of New Mexico, only a few military installations could be accurately called forts. Small detachments of the military, under Brevet Lieutenant Colonel John Munroe, were sta- tioned in towns along the Rio Grande from Taos to El Paso del Norte and frequently were housed in either abandoned buildings or tents. Such was the case when troops were garrisoned at Dona Ana in the spring of 1848. In January 1849 Indians robbed another wagon train near there and were seriously threatening the community’s existence.
A major military presence was established farther down the Rio Grande when Brevet Major Jefferson Van Horne arrived at Coons’ Rancho on September 14, 1849, with 257 soldiers, a massive wagon train, and 2,500 head of livestock. He had been delayed because a large group of emigrants had attached themselves to the military column for protection. Van Horne leased quarters for his men from Coons but apparently was sufficiently unimpressed to
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record a description of the facilities.
The daily life of the frontier soldier was a hardy one
requiring patience and stamina. The food by any standard was nutritionally poor and at best monotonous. Added to this was the low pay, when it was on time, the long hours, and always a clear and present danger from the Indians. These men who served on the frontier had a variety of duties, many boring and some dangerous. They frequently con- structed their own shelters; escorted wagons and freighters over roads that they might also have con- structed; supported and protected surveying par- ties; freighted many of their own supplies, some of which they shared with emigrants and expedition groups; grew their own gardens and tended their
four-footed commissary and riding stock; cut wood and piled hay; protected private and government property; assisted and fed friendly Indians; and
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At $7 per month for enlisted men, small wonder that army desertions ran
high.
In the Southwest, with great distances to cover on
patrol or in response to Indian raids, the military
frequently used mounted soldiers called Dragoons
or Mounted Riflemen that later evolved into units of o/
Chapter 3
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fought those who were not.
These troops were most likely armed with one of the various models of the 1840 Hall breech-loading .54-caliber carbine and the long, heavy, Model 1840 cavalry saber commonly referred
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called mountain howitzers.
The lot of the Indians may have been better in some
ways, but it was worse in many more. They had suffered greatly in the years of constant conflict with the Mexicans and the Spanish before them. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Apaches were compressed into the limited areas they would inhabit
the Cavalry.
A cap-and-ball revolver completed the personal armament. Infantry weapons were usually confined to one of the several smooth-bored and hence terribly inaccurate muz- zle-loaders varying from .54- to .69-caliber. Fre- quently, mounted infantry or cavalry were accompanied by small artillery pieces commonly
to as “old wrist-breaker.”
during the Indian Wars with the Americans.
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In
their desperate struggle to escape annihilation, be-
tween 1540 and 1886 these people were the prin-
cipal factor preventing Whites from occupying and
developing the Southwest according to Anglo stand-
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ards.
Although in later years the Apaches fought with
captured or purchased firearms, they augmented
these with primitive (but frequently more reliable)
weapons such as bows and arrows and lances. The
lance, possibly native but more likely an adaptation
of the Spanish weapon, was a favorite for many. It
was made of an agave stalk, reinforced with rawhide
and pointed with a sharp stone, knife blade, or per-
haps even a captured bayonet. The length of this
formidable weapon was about 15 feet. Apaches,
both women and men, almost always carried a knife
of some sort for defense and other utilitarian pur- 91
poses.
One of the important elements in the Apaches’
ability to resist military control and avoid the troops was the reading of tracks and other signs and the