 CHAPTER 37 OF THE LIFE OF KIT CARSON by EDWARD S. ELLIS When Kit Carson and the other scouts found the main trail, they eagerly took up the pursuit. They had not gone far when all doubt was removed. They were upon the track of a large hostile body of warriors, and were gaining steadily. But so rapid was the flight of the marauders that it was not until the sixth day that the first glimpse of the Indians was obtained. They were encamped on a mountain peak, devoid of trees, and seemingly beyond the reach of danger. But such was the energy of the attack that they reached camp before the Indians could collect their animals and make off. The fight was a hot one for a few minutes, during which quite a number of warriors were killed and wounded. When night came a squad of men hid themselves near the camp from which the Indians had fled, in the expectation that some of them would steal back during the darkness to learn what had been done. The dismal hours passed until near midnight when one of the soldiers made the call which the Apaches used to hail each other. The sound had hardly died out when two squaws and two warriors appeared and began groping silently around in the gloom. The soldiers were cruel enough to fire upon the party, but in the darkness only one was killed. Dr. Peter states that on the morning of the day when the Apache encampment was discovered, Kit Carson, after diligently studying the trail, rode up to Major Carlton and told him that if no accident intervened, the Indians would be overtaken at two o'clock in the afternoon. The officer smiled and said if the agent proved a genuine profit he would present him with the finest hat that could be bought in the United States. The pursuit continued for hours, and when the watches in the company showed that it was two o'clock, Carson triumphantly pointed to the mountain peak, far in advance where the Indian encampment was in plain sight. He had hit the truth with mathematical exactness. Major Carlton kept his promise. To procure such a hat as he felt he had earned required several months, but one day the Indian agent at Taos received a superb piece of head care within which was the following inscription. At two o'clock, Kit Carson, from Major Carlton. Dr. Peter's adds that a gentleman who was a member of the expedition subjected Carson some years later to a similar test, and he came within five minutes of naming the precise time when a band of fugitives was overtaken. Having done all that was possible Major Carlton returned with his command to Taos, and Carson resumed his duties as Indian agent. Some months later another expedition was organized against the Apaches, but it accomplished nothing. In the latter part of the summer Carson started on a visit to the Utah's. They were under his special charge, and he held interviews with them several times a year. They generally visiting him at his ranch, which they were glad to do as they were sure of being very hospitably treated. This journey required a horseback ride of two or three hundred miles, a great portion of which was through the Apache country. These Indians were in such a resentful mood towards the Whites that they would have been only too glad to wrench the scalp of Father Kit from his crown, but he knew better than to run into any of their traps. He was continually on the lookout, and more than once detected their wandering bands in time to give them the slip. He was equally vigilant, and consequently equally fortunate, on his return. Carson found when he met the Indians in council that they had good cause for discontent. One of their leading warriors had been waylaid and murdered by a small party of Mexicans. The officials who were with Carson promised that the murderers should be given up. It was the intention of all that justice should be done, but as was too often the case it miscarried all together. Only one of the murderers was caught, and he managed to escape and was never apprehended again. To make matters worse, some of the blankets which the superintendent had presented the Indians a short while before proved to be infected with smallpox, and the dreadful disease carried off many of the leading warriors of the tribe. More than one Apache was resolute in declaring the proceeding premeditated on the part of the Whites. The result was the breaking out of the most formidable Indian War. The Muach Band of the Utahes, under their most distinguished chieftain, joined the Apaches in waylaying and murdering travelers, attacking settlements, and making off with the prisoners, besides capturing hundreds and thousands of cattle, sheep, mules, and horses. For a time they overran a large portion of the territory of New Mexico. Matters at last reached such a pass that unless the savages were checked they would annihilate all the Whites. The governor issued a call for volunteers. The response was prompt, and five hundred men were speedily equipped and put into the field. They were placed under the charge of Colonel T. T. Fauneroy of the 1st Regiment of the United States Tragoons. He engaged Kit Carson as his chief guide. The campaign was pushed with all possible vigor, but for a time nothing important was done. The weather became intensely cold. On the second campaign Colonel Fauneroy surprised the main camp of the enemy and inflicted great slaughter. A severe blow was administered, but the reader knows that the peace which followed proved only temporary. The Apaches have been a thorn in our side for many years. General Crook has shown great tact, bravery, and rare skill in his dealings with them, and probably has brought about the most genuine peace that has been known for a generation. It would not be worthwhile to follow Kit Carson on his round of duties as Indian agent. He had to deal with the most turbulent tribes on the continent, and enough has been told to prove his peerless sagacity in solving the most difficult questions brought before him. He rode thousands of miles, visiting remote points, conferring with the leading hostels, risked his lifetimes without number, and was often absent from home for weeks and months. While it was beyond the attainment of human endeavor for him to make an end of wars on the frontiers, yet he averted many and did a degree of good which is beyond all calculation. I was in the insignificant settlement of Denver in the autumn of 1860, said A. L. Worthington. When a party of Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Comanches returned from an expedition against the tribes of mountain Indians known as the Utes, the Allied forces were almost beautifully whipped and were compelled to leave the mountains in the greatest hurry for their lives. They brought into Denver one squaw and her half dozen children as prisoners. The little barbarians, when the other youngsters came too near or molested them, would fight like young wildcats. The intention of the captors, as I learned, was to torture the squaw and her children to death. Before the arrangements were completed, Kit Carson rode to the spot and dismounted. He had a brief, earnest talk with the warriors. He did not mean to permit the cruel death that was contemplated, but instead of demanding the surrender of the captives, he ransomed them all, paying ten dollars apiece. After they were given up, he made sure that they were returned to their tribe in the mountains. This anecdote may serve as an illustration of scores of similar duties in which the agent was engaged. It was during the same year that Carson received an entry which was the cause of his death. He was descending a mountain so steep that he led his horse by a lariat, intending, if the animal fell, to let go of it in time to prevent being injured. The steed did fall, and though Carson threw the lariat from him, he was caught by it, dragged some distance and severely injured. When the late Civil War broke out and most of our troops were withdrawn from the mountains and plains, Carson applied to President Lincoln for permission to raise a regiment of volunteers in New Mexico for the purpose of protecting our settlements there. Permission was given, the regiment raised, and the famous mountaineer did good service with his soldiers. On one occasion he took nine thousand Navajo prisoners with less than six hundred men. At the close of the war he was ordered to Fort Garland where he assumed command of a large region. He was Brevet Brigadier General and retained command of a battalion of New Mexico volunteers. Carson did not suffer immediately from his injury, but he found in time a grave internal disturbance had been caused by his fall. In the spring of 1868 he accompanied a party of Ute Indians to Washington. He was then failing fast and consulted a number of leading physicians and surgeons. His disease was aneurysm of the aorta which progressed fast. When his end was nigh his wife suddenly died, leaving seven children, the youngest only a few weeks old. His affliction had a very depressing effect on Carson, who expired May 23rd, 1868. In closing the life of Kit Carson it would be appropriate to add two letters which were furnished at our request. 912 Garrison Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri, June 25th, 1884. Kit Carson first came into public notice by Fremont's reports of the exploration of the Great West about 1842 to 3. You will find mention of Kit Carson in my memoirs, Volume 1, page 46, 47, as bringing to us the first overland male to California in his saddle bags. I saw but little of him afterwards till after the Civil War, when in 1866 I was the Lieutenant General commanding the military division of the Missouri, with headquarters in St. Louis, and made a tour of my command, including Waternau, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. Reaching Fort Garland, New Mexico in September of 1866, I found it garrisoned by some companies of New Mexico volunteers of which Carson was Colonel or commanding officer. I stayed with him some days, during which we had a sort of council with the Ute Indians, of which the Chief Ure was the principal feature, and over whom Carson exercised a powerful influence. Carson then had his family with him, wife and half a dozen children, boys and girls as wild and untrained as a brood of Mexican Mustangs. One day these children ran through the room in which we were seated, half clad and boisterous, and I inquired, Kit, what are you doing about your children? He replied, That is a source of great anxiety, I myself had no education. He could not even write, his wife always signing his name to his official reports. I value education as much as any man, but I have never had the advantage of schools, and now that I am getting old and infirm, I fear I have not done right by my children. I explained to him that the Catholic College at South Bend, Indiana, had for some reason given me a scholarship for twenty years and that I would divide with him, that is let him send two of his boys for five years each. He seemed very grateful and said he would think of it. My recollection is that his regiment was mustered out of service that winter, 1866 to 7, and that the following summer, 1867, he, Carson, went to Washington on some business for the youths, and on his return toward New Mexico he stopped at Fort Lyon on the Upper Arkansas where he died. His wife died soon after at Taos, New Mexico, and the children fell to the care of a brother-in-law, Mr. Boggs, who had a large ranch on the Purgation near Fort Lyon. It was reported of Carson when notified that death was impending that he said, Send William, his eldest son, to General Sherman, who has promised to educate him. Accordingly, some time about the spring of 1868 there came to my house in St. Louis a stout boy with a revolver, life of Kit Carson by Dr. Peters, United States Army, about forty dollars in money and a letter from Boggs saying that in compliance with the request of Kit Carson on his death-bed he had sent William Carson to me. Allowing him a few days of vacation with my own children I sent him to the college at South Bend, Indiana, with a letter of explanation, and making myself responsible for his expenses. He was regularly entered in one of the classes and reported to me regularly. I found the scholarship amounted to what is known as tuition, but for three years I paid all his expenses of board, clothing, books, etc., amounting to about three hundred dollars a year. At the end of that time the priest reported to me that Carson was a good-natured boy, willing enough, but that he had no taste or appetite for learning. His letters to me confirmed this conclusion as he could not possibly spell. After reflection I concluded to send him to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to the care of General Langdon C. Easton, United States Quartermaster, with instructions to employ him in some capacity in which he could earn his board and clothing, and to get some officer of the garrison to teach him just what was necessary for a lieutenant of Calvary. Lieutenant Beard, adjutant of the Fifth Infantry, did this. He, William Carson, was employed as a messenger, and as he approached his twenty-first year under the tuition of Lieutenant Beard he made good progress. Meantime I was promoted to General-in-Chief at Washington. And about eighteen-seventy when Carson had become twenty-one years of age I applied in person to the President, General Grant, to give the son of Kit Carson, the appointment of Second Lieutenant, Ninth United States Calvary, telling him somewhat of the foregoing details. General Grant promptly ordered the appointment to issue, subject to the examination as to educational qualifications required by law. The usual board of officers was appointed at Fort Leavenworth, and Carson was ordered before it. After careful examination the board found him deficient in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Of course he could not be commissioned. I had given him four years of my guardianship, about one thousand dollars of my own money, and the benefit of my influence, all in vain. By nature he was not adapted to modern uses. I accordingly wrote him that I had exhausted my ability to provide for him, and advised him to return to his Uncle Boggs at the Purgation, to assist him in his cattle and sheep ranch. I heard from him by letter once or twice afterward, in one of which he asked me to procure for him the agency of the youths. On inquiry at the proper office in Washington I found that another person had secured the place of which I notified him. And though of late years I have often been on the Purgation and in the Ute Country I could learn nothing of the other children of Kit Carson or of William, who for four years was a sort of ward to me. Since the building of railroads in that region the whole character of its population has changed, and were Kit Carson to arise from his grave he could not find the buffalo, elk, or deer where he used to see millions. He could not even recognize the country with which he used to be so familiar, or find his own children whom he loved, and for whose welfare he felt so solicitous in his later days. Kit Carson was a good type of a class of men most useful in their day, but now is antiquated as Jason of the Golden Fleece, Ulysses of Troy, and Chevalier LaSalle of the Lakes. Daniel Boone of Kentucky, Irvin Bridger, and Jim Beckwith of the Rockies, all belonging to the dead past. Yours truly, W. T. Sherman. Trenton, New Jersey June 23, 1884. In accordance with your request to give my recollections of Kit Carson I would say that I met and spent several days with him in September 1866 at and near Fort Garland, Colorado, on the headquarters of the Rio Grande. I was then Brevet Brigadier General and Inspector, United States Volunteers, on a tour of inspection of the military depots and posts in that region and across to the Pacific. General Sherman happened there at the same time on like duty as to his military division, and our joint talks as a rule extended far into the night and over many subjects. Kit was then Brevet Brigadier General, United States Volunteers, and in command of Fort Garland and a wide region thereabouts, mostly Indian, which he knew thoroughly. Fort Garland was a typical frontier post composed of log huts chinked with mud, rough but comfortable, and in one of these Kit then lived with his Mexican wife and several half-breed children. He was then a man apparently about fifty years of age. From what I had read about him I had expected to see a small, wiry man, weather-beaten and reticent, but found him to be medium-sized, rather stoutish, and a quite talkative person instead. His hair was already well-silvered, but his face full and florid. You would scarcely regard him at first sight as a very noticeable man except as having a well-knit frame and full, deep chest. But on observing him more closely you were struck with the breadth and openness of his brow bespeaking more than ordinary intelligence and courage. With his quick blue eye that caught everything at a glance, apparently, an eye beaming with kindliness and benevolence, but that could blaze with anger when aroused, and with his full square jaw and chin that evidently could shut as tight as Sherman's or Grant's when necessary. With nothing of the swashbuckler or buffalo bill of the border ruffian or the cowboy about him his manners were as gentle and his voice as soft and sympathetic as a woman's. What impressed one most about his face was its rare kindliness and charity. That here at last was a natural gentleman, simple as a child but brave as a lion. He soon took our hearts by storm, and the more we saw of him the more we became impressed with his true manliness and worth. Like everybody else on the border he smoked freely and at one time drank considerably. But he had quit drinking years before and said he owed his excellent health and preeminence, if he had any, to his habits of almost total abstinence. In conversation he was slow and hesitating at first, approaching almost to a bashfulness, often seemingly at a loss for words. But as he warmed up, this disappeared, and you soon found him talking glibly and with his hands and fingers as well, rapidly gesticulating, Indian fashion. He was very conscientious and in all our talks would frequently say, Now stop, gentlemen, is this right, ought we to do this, can we do that? Is this like human nature? Or words to this effect? As if it was the habit of his mind to test everything by the moral law. I think that was the predominating feature of his character, his perfect honesty and truthfulness, quite as much as his matchless coolness and courage. Said Sherman to me one day while there, His integrity is simply perfect. The Redskins know it and would trust Kit any day before they would us, or the President either. And Kit well returned their confidence by being their steadfast, unswerving friend and ready champion. He talked freely of his past life unconscious of his extraordinary character. Born in Kentucky, he said, he early took to the plains and mountains and joined the hunters and trappers when he was so young he could not set a trap. When he became older he turned trapper himself and trapped all over our territories for beaver, otter, etc., from the Missouri to the Pacific and from the British America to Mexico. Next he passed into government employ as an Indian scout and guide, and as such piloted Fremont and others all over the plains and through the rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains. Fremont, in his reports, surrounded Kit's name with a romantic valor, but he seems to have deserved it all and more. His good sense, his large experience and unfaltering courage were invaluable to Fremont. And it is said about the only time the pathfinder went seriously astray among the mountains was when he disregarded his, Kit's, advice, and endeavour to force a passage through the rockies northwest of Fort Garland. Kit told him the mountains could not be crossed at that time of the year, and when Fremont nevertheless insisted on proceeding he resigned as guide. The pathfinder, however, went stubbornly forward but got caught in terrible snowstorms and presently returned, half of his men and animals having perished outright from cold and hunger. Next Kit became United States Indian agent and made one of the best we ever had. Familiar with the language and customs of the Indians he frequently spent months together among them without seeing a white man, and indeed became a sort of half Indian himself. In talking with us I noticed he frequently hesitated for the right English word. But when speaking bastard Spanish, Mexican, or Indian, with the Ute Indians there, he was as fluent as a native. Both Mexican and Indian, however, are largely pandemine, abounding in perpetual grimace and gesture, which may have helped him along somewhat. Next, when the rebellion broke out, he became a Union soldier, though the border was largely confederate. He tendered his services to Mr. Lincoln who at once commissioned him colonel, and told him to take care of the frontier as the regulars there had to come east to fight Jeff Davis. Kit straightway proceeded to raise the first regiment of New Mexico volunteers, in which he had little difficulty, as the New Mexicans knew him well, and had the utmost confidence in him. With these during the war he was busy fighting hostile Indians and keeping others friendly, and in his famous campaign against the Navajos in New Mexico, with only six hundred frontier volunteers captured some nine thousand prisoners. The Indians withdrew into a wild canyon where no white man, it was said, had ever penetrated, and believed to be impregnable. But Kit pursued them from either end, and attacked them with pure Indian strategy and tactics, and the Navajos, finding themselves thus surrounded, and their supplies cut off, outwitted by a keener fighter than themselves, surrendered at discretion. Then he did not slaughter them, but marched them into a goodly reservation and put them to work herding and planting, and they had continued peaceable ever since. Kit seemed thoroughly familiar with Indian life and character, and it must be conceded that no American of his time knew our aborigines better, if any so well. It must be set down to their credit that he was their stout friend, no Boston philanthropist more so. He did not hesitate to say that all our Indian troubles were caused originally by bad white men, if the truth were known, and was terribly severe on the brutalities and barbarities of the border. He said the Indians were very different from what they used to be, and were yearly becoming more so from contact with border ruffians and cowboys. He said he had lived for years among them with only occasional visits to the settlements, and he had never known an Indian to injure a pale face, where he did not deserve it. On the other hand he had seen an Indian kill his brother even for insulting a white man in the old times. He insisted that Indians never commit outrages unless they are first provoked to them by the borderers, and that many of the peculiar and special atrocities with which they are charged are only their imitation of the bad acts of wicked white men. He pleaded for the Indians, as poor ignorant critters who had no learning and didn't know no better, whom we were daily robbing of their hunting grounds and homes, and solemnly asked, What do you suppose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things? He was particularly severe upon Colonel Chivington and the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, which was still fresh in the public mind. Said he, just to think of that dog Chivington and his dirty hounds up there at Sand Creek. Who ever heard of such doings among Indians? The poor Indians had the stars and stripes flying over them, our old flag there, and they'd been told down to Denver, that so long as they kept that flying they'd be safe enough. Well, then one day along comes that darn Chivington and his cusses. They'd been out several days hunting, hostels, and couldn't find none nowhere, and if they had they'd have skedaddled from them, you bet, so they just led upon these friendlies and massacred them. Yes, sir, literally massacred them. In cold blood, in spite of our flag there. Yes, women and little children even. Why, Senator Foster told me with his own lips, and him and his committee come out here from Washington, you know, and investigated this mess. That that darned miscreant and his men shot down squaws and blew the brains out of little innocent children, pistoled little papooses in the arms of their dead mothers, and even worse than this, them darned devils, and you call such soldiers Christians, do you, and poor Indian savages. I tell you what, friends, I don't like a hostile red skin any more than you do, and when they are hostile I fit them, fowl them, and expect to fight them hard as any man. That's my business, but I never yet drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despised the man who would. Taint natural for men to kill women and poor little children, and none but a coward or a dog would do it. Of course when we white men do such awful things, why these poor ignorant critters don't know no better than to follow suit. Poor things, poor things, I've seen as much of them as any man living, and I can't help but pity them, right or wrong. They once owned all this country, yes, plains and mountains, buffalo and everything, but now they own next door to nothing, and will soon be gone. A last poor kid, he has already gone to the happy hunting grounds, but the Indians had no truer friend, and Kit Carson would wish no prouder epitaph than this. In talking thus he would frequently get his grammar wrong, and his language was only the patois of the border. But there was an eloquence in his eye, and a patois in his voice, that would have touched a heart of stone, and a genuine manliness about him at all times, that would have won him hosts of friends anywhere. And so, Kit Carson, good friend, brave heart, generous soul, hail, and farewell. Hoping these rough recollections may serve your purpose, I remain very respectfully your obedient servant, James F. Rustling. The following tribute to the matchless scout, hunter, and guide is from the Salt Lake Tribune. He wrote his own biography, and left it where the addition will never grow dim. The alphabet he used was made of the rivers, the plains, the forests, and the eternal heights. He started in his youth with his face to the west, headed toward where no trails had been blazed, where there was not to meet him but the wilderness, the wild beast, and the still more savage man. He made his lonely camps by the rivers, and now it is a fiction with those who sleep on the same grounds that the waters in their flow murmur the great pathfinder's name. He followed the water courses to their sources, and guided by them, learned where the mountains bent their crests to make possible highways for the feet of men. He climbed the mountains, and disputed with the eagles up the crags, for points of observation. He met the wild beast and subdued him. He met the savage of the plains and of the hills, and in his own person gave him notice of his sovereignty and skill, in cunning and in courage. To the red man he was the voice of fate. In him they saw a materialized foreboding of their destiny. To them he was a voice crying the coming of a race against which they could not prevail, before which they were to be swept away. End of Chapter 38 The Life of Kit Carson by Edward S. Ellis. Recording by Laura Victoria.