Page 82 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Lieutenant Morris, the adjutant of Fort Webster, came in todayfrom Mesilla, where he hadbeensentaftercomforthehorsesofthe dragoonsunderMajorSteen. Morrisreports that the Indian, Del Carditis [Delgadito], who had been among those who made the treaty of peace with us some time ago, is at the head of apartyofoutlaws. DelCarditisandhisband refuse to treat with the Indian agent, Greener [John Greiner] or receive any supplies from him. The whole command was sent out from Fort Webster after his band. It headed for the camp of the Indian Ponce, who whenever he chose would come in and profusely profess friendship. Before reaching Ponce’s camp our troopscameuponDelCarditis’party. There
wasanengagement. Oursoldierssucceededin
killing two of the Indians and wounding quite 109
a number of the others
.
named McGowan. The Indians lost no time in sack- ing the fort and then proceeded to set it on fire beforethesoldiershadmarchedoutofsight. The troopsreturnedthroughCooke’sCanyonandthen angled northeast to the Rio Grande. On Christmas Day they camped at Santa Barbara near where Fort Thorn was to be constructed.
OnDecember24,1853,FortThorn(Figure24)was
officially established on the west side of the Rio
Grande, by a company of troops from Fort Craig,
just below the point where Cooke’s Wagon Road
112
were still visible.
Fort Thorn would prove to be an unhealthy post
and existed only a little more than five years. Four days after the fort was organized, Captain Richard Stoddert“Baldy”Ewellcrossedtotheeastbankof the river on his way to Franklin to assist Captain Emory in the Gadsden Treaty boundary survey. In the process of crossing, Ewell’s men lost three hor- ses, two mules, two boxes of ammunition, and some of their provisions. However, for a short period the fort was an important facet in the government’s campaign against the Indians.
Elsewhere, the alleged ravisher of Mrs. James M. White, a Jicarilla Apache subchief named Lobo Blanco, finally paid the ultimate price for the Oc- tober 25, 1849, slaughter of the well-known Santa Fe trader and his companions near Point of Rocks. Following increasing Indian depredations, Gover- nor Lane had made an agreement in the winter of
1852 with several bands of northern Indians to move west of the Rio Grande and forego attacking civilians along the Santa Fe Trail in return for government furnished subsistence. When the Com- missioner of Indian Affairs, George W. Manypenny, demanded a sudden cessation of the largess, the Jicarillas and Utes resumed their former activities.
When they ran off some cattle belonging to the Fort
Apparently the confrontation was deemed rather serious because three days later the diarist noted, “We are ordered back to [new] Fort Webster on the RioMimbres.”110 Indeed,hisentryofJuly5,1852, located the column camped at the river. They had made a grueling desert march from Fort Fillmore to Cooke’s Spring that had exhausted most of the men and several had become lame.
A Mormon wagon train was camped at the spring, and the people were celebrating with fiddling and dancing. Despite the soldiers’ jaded condition, some of the women urged them to join the frivolity, which obviously displeased their menfolk. The Army officers feared trouble between their men and the Mormons so, despite the physical condition of the soldiers, they soon pushed off on a night march and reached the Mimbres River about 8 a.m. the following morning. Men continued to straggle in for two hours, and a rider was sent back for a Private McGuire who had dropped out somewhere along the way. Shortly after camping near the river, the soldiers discovered that half the oxen were missing. A party was sent in pursuit and the two Indians responsible abandoned the cattle and slipped away. The diarist later noted that Private McGuire had been rescued.
On December 20, 1853, after occupying the site a little more than 15 months, the military abandoned the new Fort Webster, leaving behind several thousand bushels of corn belonging to a civilian
Union beef
Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, sent Second Lieutenant David Bell and 30 men of the Second Dragoons in pursuit. On March 5, 1854, 50
The Frontier Soldier and the Indians
68
In October 1849, Captain Herman Thorn, had been working for several days helping emigrants across the Colorado River using two canoes lashed together. At dusk on the sixteenth, thecanoessomehowcapsized. Thornwasagood swimmer,butanoldMexicanclutchedhimandboth drowned. When Thorn’s body was found November 1, the marks on his leg from the Mexican’s fingernails
turned west.
contractor, the military commander,