Ordered West: The Civil War Exploits of Charles A. Curtis
Ordered West: The Civil War Exploits of Charles A. Curtis
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| ISBN-13: | 9781574416824 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of North Texas Press |
| Publication date: | 06/15/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 7 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
The Adventure Begins
A four years' course at the Military College of Vermont had enabled me to offer my services at the outbreak of the late war as military instructor to the volunteers of my native State of Maine and, after a few months' drilling and but a few days before the First Battle of Bull Run, I arrived in Washington with the 6 Maine Infantry. I never held a commission in the Volunteers or bore a musket in the ranks, but had frequent opportunities, nevertheless, to act as volunteer aide and twice as company commander in several affairs on the Potomac. It is not my intention to dwell upon this experience, but simply to mention that it was my good fortune to attract the attention of a general officer and, through his influence, secure, as a reward, a commission in the 5 Regular Infantry. This regiment was located at Fort Craig, New Mexico and, as soon as I had accepted my appointment and, in spite of an application to be allowed to remain on the scene of big movements and grand battles, I was ordered to join my regiment forthwith. Accordingly, one day in June, 1862, I found myself in Kansas City, Missouri, looking for a seat in the Overland Stage which left that place once a week.
This route was beset by the marauding bands of the Confederate partisan chief William Quantrill, a man as ubiquitous as Robin Hood and as sanguinary and cruel as a Cheyenne. The principal topic of the conversations of the bar-rooms and saloons in Kansas City was the daring exploits of this somewhat overrated leader; a leader whose existence, like that of Robin Hood, there have been plenty of persons ready to doubt. And there has been much to encourage this doubt, for few men can be found who claim to have seen Quantrill and his death, like his life, was hidden in mystery. He would be reported one day as swimming the Missouri River under the fire of a dozen pursuers and the next day several hundred miles farther west, burning a Kansas village and pillaging the inhabitants of their stock. Almost my first Western adventure was connected indirectly with this notorious chief.
I had found, on my arrival at Kansas City, that every seat in the coach which was to leave the next day had been taken and that there was but one vacant seat left for the following week. I booked myself for that and passed away the time in strolling about the place, making acquaintances and participating in various amusements. One morning I walked down to the levee to see a steamboat from St. Louis arrive. As she drew up to her mooring place, I noticed upon her deck an officer of the army and, as soon as the opportunity offered, I went on board and made his acquaintance. I found him to be Captain Charles E. Farrand, of the Regular cavalry, on his way to Independence to instruct some Missouri troops. We walked up to the hotel together to procure a conveyance to take the captain and his wife to their destination and, after completing the arrangements, returned to the steamer.
As we went up the plank from the levee to the deck, our attention was attracted by the clatter of hoofs and the clanking of sabres and, looking back, we saw a squad of twenty men halt on the shore, dismount and come on board the boat. While I was wondering what could be the cause of this demonstration, the sergeant in charge advanced to Farrand and told him he had an order for his arrest, at the same time placing in his hands a paper. After reading the order, the captain passed it to me and I found it was an order from the commander of a camp in the vicinity of Kansas City for the arrest of Quantrill, who was said to be a passenger on board the steamer Excelsior, from St. Louis to Kansas City, disguised as a captain of the United States Army. Then followed an accurate description of the officer who stood before me, even down to a mole at the corner of his left eye. "Well," said the captain, as I finished the order, "what do you think of that?"
"It appears to be an exact description of you," I replied.
"But I am not Quantrill," he said, with emphasis. "I am a graduate of West Point and have been an officer in the army since 1857."
"My orders were to arrest you and any other persons in your company," said the sergeant, glancing at me as he closed the sentence.
I made no attempt at explanation when I found I was included in the arrest. To me the whole thing was an amusing adventure, whatever it might be to my new acquaintance. I knew I should not have much difficulty in proving my loyalty to the flag, but how it would be with the tall, handsome fellow before me and whether he was the noted guerrilla mentioned in the order, I was by no means sure. I could not take sides with him, as he seemed to expect, for I had no knowledge of him whatever. His appearance was in his favor and while he was naturally indignant, as an innocent man might be, there was no bluster or swagger about him.
He at last requested the sergeant to accompany him to his stateroom where he could show his United States commission and the orders under which he was traveling. This was assented to and the sergeant directed two men to remain with me and half of the others to go along the outside of the boat, while he with the rest went into the saloon with the captain. All Western boats have a saloon on the second deck, running the entire length, and staterooms open out of it, each having a second door out on the guards. It was to prevent the supposed Quantrill from making a bolt through his stateroom, from the saloon, that the men were stationed outside.
I waited patiently on my seat for about fifteen minutes, until the party returned, the sergeant having become convinced that Farrand was the person he represented himself to be. With apologies for the inconvenience the execution of his orders had caused, he left us and his party soon clattered and jingled out of sight.
When once more alone, Farrand showed more indignation than he had during the whole interview with the sergeant and for the rest of the day he never ceased to wonder who was at the bottom of "this contemptible trick." About six o'clock in the afternoon he left for Independence and I never met him again, but I afterward learned that a party of his friends in St. Louis telegraphed the military commander at Kansas City that Quantrill was on the steamboat, giving a minute description of Farrand as a practical joke. Whether they were punished for so grave a military offence I never knew, as in a few days I was on the plains and events of the next month reached me only in fragments.
On the 16 of June, 1862, a Concord coach, drawn by six horses and capable of holding nine passengers, drew up at my hotel. I found the passengers were to be six in number, being two in a seat, and consisted of Captain William J. L. Nicodemus, of the 12 Infantry; Lieutenant Hugh Johnson, recently appointed, like myself, and to the same regiment; an army surgeon, Doctor William W. Nassau; and Mahlon Cottrill, whom Vermonters will remember as the owner of some of the principal stage lines in the old coaching days. The sixth passenger was to be taken up farther along the line.
Mr. Cottrill had recently secured the contract to run the mail to Santa Fé and was going out to look after the stock and property of the old contractor, with a view to the valuation and purchase. Our sixth passenger was the old contractor, a former member of Congress, by the name of Andrew Stuart. His precise whereabouts were not known, but, as I remarked above, he was to join us farther along.
Upon assembling at the coach, Captain Nicodemus told us we had better not wear uniforms, but put on civilian apparel, that bands of Quantrill's men would probably overhaul us and if they had no suspicion that we were soldiers would let us pass by, simply relieving us of superfluous valuables. To Lieutenant Johnson's objection that it seemed to look like cowardice to sink our rank, the captain replied that "he hoped none of us would prove cowards if it came to a fight, but he thought it foolhardy to invite attack, when a simple change of clothing would probably take us safely through." We agreed to this and changed our dress, at the same time looking well to our pistols and ammunition.
Captain Nicodemus was a Baltimorean and a graduate of West Point. His traits of character will show themselves as we go on. Lieutenant Johnson had been a dry goods clerk in Buffalo, whom patriotism had taken into the field and whose "Congressional uncle" had secured for him a commission in the Regular Army. A good fellow enough and a brave one, as I had opportunity afterwards to learn, but whose bundle of Ned Buntline, Harry Hazel and Lieutenant Murray's novelettes, stored under his seat for his perusal on the plains, did not convey to the rest of us a high impression of his erudition and literary acquirements. Doctor Nassau was known in the Army of the Cumberland as the "fighting doctor," having at Fort Donelson abandoned the scalpel to take the sword, rally a band of retreating soldiers and lead them into the fight, a thing he was well qualified to do from some previous experience as militia captain and no end of pluck.
Johnson had been sick for some time with dysentery and at first declared his intention of remaining behind for another week, but at the last moment placed himself in the coach, on the back seat, with Nicodemus. The latter held the lieutenant in his arms for a great part of the time, over the first 300 miles of our journey — and he was no small burden — and showed him every kindly attention in his power.
The allowance of baggage was sixty pounds per man and, in addition to this, each one of us had a roll of bedding, for sleeping on the prairie. Under the seats and in every available place were bestowed parcels, lunch packages, canteens and two demijohns of Bourbon whiskey, given some members of our party by Mr. Charles Kearney, a Kansas City merchant. Revolvers, two breech-loading carbines and ammunition for the same were placed in convenient loops overhead, for we were quite sure we should be obliged to use them. Only the trip before, at one of the relay stations, the Confederates had taken all the horses from the coach and stables and a month before, when Captain Nicodemus had come in from Santa Fé, bearing special dispatches from General Edward R. S. Canby to Washington, all the passengers had been robbed.
The Eastern reader, accustomed to the green fields and forests, hills, mountains and valleys, springs, rivulets and rivers which surround him on every hand, gets but a faint idea of the plains, mountains, valleys and streams of the Far West. In my own case I know that close reading of Western travel, with careful study of all the physical features of the country between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean, did not fully prepare me for what I met with when I came to march over and actually see the country for myself. I have since crossed the plains on foot from the Missouri to Fort Sumner, New Mexico; I have crossed in a stagecoach from the same point to Santa Fé; I have marched from the Rio Grande to the Pacific; and I have crossed the continent on the railroad; and I feel obliged to say that even when I saw the very things of which I had so often read, I was surprised; so hard is it to break up the impressions made by our home surroundings.
When one leaves Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for the overland trip, on foot or in the stagecoach, for several days' journey the country does not strike him as very different from most of the Eastern States. There may be, if he chooses to examine closely, some trees and shrubs different from those he saw at home, but there is still the verdure; there are still the brawling streams that skirt the roadside or over which the road passes on a bridge; there are the wayside springs and there are the waving forests. But soon the trees dwarf and finally disappear, except the cottonwoods along the river bottom; soon no more springs are seen and, shortly after, an entire day's march may be made without seeing a brook or spring. Now the soldier, who has served in the East and replenished his canteen every time he desired cool water, first learns why the army canteen is covered with cloth. It is that by saturating the woolen cover and leaving the cork out, the rapid evaporation of the water on the outside may cool that inside. In nearly all parts of the Far West water is brought into the houses in the evening, of a temperature too warm to be palatable and is cooled in water pots covered with woolen cloth or in those which are slightly porous, so as to emit a constant moisture, or in canvas buckets which do the same. The water thus cooled in the night is drunk during the following day.
As the march continues, the grasses change. Timothy, bluegrass, clover, etc. have all disappeared and are succeeded by the rich and burling buffalo grass and soon this yields in New Mexico to the grama grass. The country gradually grows drier and the cactus begins to be seen on every hand. Insect life grows more venomous and rattlesnakes abound. One officer who marched with me from Fort Leavenworth killed sixty-four rattlesnakes before we reached Bent's Old Fort and that without hunting for them. Often we were compelled to march thirty and sometimes forty miles in order to reach water. As we approach the Rocky Mountains and its spurs, we see for the first time the piñon (a small pine bearing edible seeds) and juniper trees. These are about the size of the apple tree and seen at a long distance away, on the dry and otherwise barren mountainside, look like orchards irregularly set out.
In New Mexico the whole country is dry and utterly incapable of cultivation except by irrigation. There are grasses which grow luxuriantly during the fall rains and cure on the stalk retaining all their nourishment through the year. This makes the country excellent for raising sheep and cattle. Nearly all vegetation, even the grasses, is armed with thorns, and tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes and other poisonous insects abound. Harmless lizards rustle and gleam through the grass on every side and the horrid rattlesnake sounds his warning or hisses his defiance as we pass him on the road.
Unaware of what lay ahead, we drove out of Kansas City to begin our journey on the morning of June 16, 1862. The road for many miles was crowded by the incoming empty and outgoing loaded ox wagons which do the commerce of the plains and which leave and arrive at the towns on the Missouri River (or did until the railroads put an end to their traffic) like ships at a seaport. Trains generally numbered twenty-five wagons and were drawn by five yokes of oxen each. The drivers were usually Mexicans, for the most of these trains went to New Mexico and, as the stage rolled past them, each dusky driver was seized with a desire to attract attention by his vociferations and the repeated pistol-like cracking of his buckskin "popper." The whip lashes were several yards long and the constant "popping" of all the drivers in a train was something like the firing of a bundle of Chinese crackers.
The road across the plains is a natural one, on which no work is done. When it becomes gullied by the rains, it is only necessary to turn to one side and make a new track. It is level, hard and free from dust. By level, I mean generally level, for the Great Plains roll and frequently the ascent from a depression to the top of the roll is quite hill-like. From the top, the plain on every hand appeared as limitless and as level as the ocean, but in the depression one seems to be in the bottom of a basin.
Our ride was to be constant for 300 miles — night and day — with stops every fifteen miles for relays and three times per day for meals. For the first half of this distance we were regularly inspected by parties of Quantrill's men — rough-looking fellows, armed to the teeth, who would ride up and peer into the coach and leave us to go on unmolested. Of course we wondered why these fellows said nothing, made no attempt to relieve us of our property and, when Johnson said as much, Mr. Cottrill replied "that they were looking for Stuart, and as they did not find him thought we were not worth 'plucking.'" He then told us this story.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
Preface,
Introduction,
Chapter 1 The Adventure Begins,
Chapter 2 Across the Plains,
Chapter 3 Along the Santa Fé Trail,
Chapter 4 Into New Mexico,
Chapter 5 Arrival in Santa Fé,
Chapter 6 Albuquerque and the Rio Grande,
Chapter 7 Arrival at Fort Craig,
Chapter 8 On the March,
Chapter 9 Encounter with Apaches,
Chapter 10 Las Cruces and Mesilla,
Chapter 11 New Mexico Stories,
Chapter 12 Across the Jornada Del Muerto,
Chapter 13 From Peralta to Fort Marcy,
Chapter 14 Quartermaster Duty,
Chapter 15 Romantic Entanglements,
Chapter 16 En Route to Conejos,
Chapter 17 No Potatoes, But a New Assignment,
Chapter 18 Indian Attack at Los Valles Grandes,
Chapter 19 Pueblos and Navajos,
Chapter 20 Indians of New Mexico,
Chapter 21 Lost in the Wilderness,
Chapter 22 Winter Quarters,
Chapter 23 Return to Jemez,
Chapter 24 Good-Bye to Los Valles Grandes,
Chapter 25 Departure from Albuquerque,
Chapter 26 Headed for Fort Wingate,
Chapter 27 Inscription Rock,
Chapter 28 Sightseeing and a Captive Boy,
Chapter 29 Coues and Consequences,
Chapter 30 Colorado Chiquito and a Porcupine,
Chapter 31 Troubles with Coues and Indians,
Chapter 32 Arrival at Fort Whipple,
Chapter 33 Building a Fort,
Chapter 34 The Missing Mail Carrier,
Chapter 35 Horse Flesh,
Chapter 36 A Bad Day Fishing,
Chapter 37 Cash and Carrying on,
Chapter 38 Life in Prescott,
Chapter 39 Fight at Red Rocks,
Chapter 40 Politics and Punishment,
Chapter 41 Into the Desert,
Chapter 42 Water in Several Forms,
Chapter 43 La Paz,
Chapter 44 Major Thompson's Scout,
Chapter 45 Last Days at Fort Whipple,
Chapter 46 Doctor Coues in Charge,
Chapter 47 A Change in Command,
Chapter 48 California and Home,
Bibliography,
Index,