Part 2

_August 3._--Left our camp at 5 a. m. During the morning we passed a government train under charge of Captain John E. Pope, topographical engineers. Captain Pope is _en route_ for the Llano Estacado, near the 32d parallel of latitude, to experiment as to the practicability of procuring water there by means of artesian wells.

[When I returned over this portion of our road in January, I found that Captain Pope was at his camp near the mouth of Delaware creek. I consider it an excellent thing for this section of country that our government should undertake to establish or disprove the opinions expressed by many scientific men upon the question of obtaining water by means of artesian wells in the Llano Estacado of Texas, and on the high table lands of Arizona and New Mexico. I refer to this matter again in treating of the present watering places on our route, and in presenting my ideas of the proper method of securing an adequate supply of water at intermediate points.]

We cooked our breakfast this morning under the trees just outside of the tower of Uvalde. We have tin plates, tin cups, knives and forks, iron spoons, a gunny bag as a table cloth, and one seat in the shape of a water keg among eight of us. Camped for the night at 8 p. m. Made 42 miles to-day.

_August 4._--Left camp at 3 a. m. Reached Fort Clarke at 5 a. m. Left Fort Clarke at 1 p. m.

I wrote to Mr. Birch to-day, informing him of my progress up to this point, calling his attention particularly to the attack on Captain Wallace, which resulted in the loss of that complete outfit. I further advised him of having drawn on him at 90 days’ date for the sum of five thousand dollars, payable at the Bank of Manhattan Company, New York, at which I knew he kept his account. I requested Mr. Birch to remit this money at once from California to the cashier of the bank, as our agent at San Antonio would need money to purchase new stock with which to replace those stolen by the Indians; this letter I addressed to Sacramento, the city which would be his headquarters during his stay in California.

[Desiring to make this draft the basis of a further credit for our agent in San Antonio, I enclosed it to the firm there who had agreed to make advances to the line. I requested them to continue such advances according to promise, and further desired them to collect this draft of $5,000, passing the same to the credit of the line on open account. In consequence of Mr. Birch’s death this draft was not paid at maturity, but returned protested to Texas, and is supposed to have been in the mail on board the steamer Opelousas, which was lost in the Gulf.]

Before leaving San Antonio I procured an order, which General Twiggs gave me very cheerfully, requesting the commanders of the military posts in his division to give me an escort for the mail whenever I asked it. I did not deem it necessary at this time to ask for one, as I had with me twenty well-armed men. Under any circumstances, however, when we were required to make mail speed, this order for an escort would prove useless, inasmuch as by its terms I was required to furnish transportation to the soldiers. We could not do it and make mail time. To escort a train of supplies for us, at any time, such an order would prove very acceptable, when the speed is about one-half that of the mail.

In this same order of General Twiggs, of which I regret not having a copy, he gave us permission to place our mules in the government herd, and also to keep an hostler with them at each of the military posts.

Camped for the night, at 10½ p. m.; made 42 miles to-day. August 5. Left camp at 4.40.

Leaving Fort Clarke may be properly described as leaving the settlements for the Indian country. This fact in connexion with the recent accident to our train made us all now doubly cautious on our day and night guards.

At noon to-day we saw Indian signs around a water hole; these signs consisted of pony tracks, unshod hoofs, and moccasin prints; they were presumed by our most most expert frontier men to be only a few hours old. Camped for the night at 8 p. m.

Made 41 miles to-day.

_August 6._--Left camp at 4 a. m.

[After this day I did not note the precise hour of leaving camp in the morning, or of camping at night, because the jolting, or some other cause, had put my own watch out of order. Our hours, however, were much the same as they have been stated until passing the Tucson, west of which a large portion of the work was night service.--See Journal, Sept. 1st to 18th.]

In carrying the mail we do not drive all the time from our morning start to the night camp. We stop four times during the day; twice for our two meals of breakfast and dinner; breakfast after the morning drive, dinner about 4 o’clock. We also stop once for a nooning, and once about sunset to graze the mules, at which hour they seem to feed best.

We stopped half an hour to-day at Camp Hudson, situated at the second crossing of the San Pedro, or the Devil’s river; here I found the remnant of our coach, with the pole and ten spokes broken, the bars gone, the top all stripped, a bullet hole through the body from a gun, carbine, or some piece carrying a heavy ball, and fired by the Indians. Made 42 miles to-day.

_August 7._--To-day we crossed the Llano Estacado at the narrowest part. By my schedule of distances you will perceive it is only thirty miles from Howard Springs to Live Oak creek, and only a portion of the distance can be properly called the _staked plain_; in fact this is about its southern termination. Camped about midnight. Made 52 miles to-day.

_August 8._--Our morning drive brought us about breakfast time just outside the lines at Fort Lancaster. I learned that Captain Skillman had purchased a pair of mules here, and gone on in good condition. We have had a fine road, with abundance of good grazing, all the way from Fort Clarke to this post. Now that we have been a number of days on our journey, we find that many of our mules are becoming foot sore or tired; these are such as are new to the service, and they become, by the time the night drive is over, very much fatigued. Mules, with us, have to go through a period of hardening and a process of acclimation before they become adapted to the purposes of prairie staging. The speed at which we trot them, their hard work, the drinking of different kinds of water at different stopping places, all try the constitution of the animal, while even eating corn, which we feed to them at all times, whether on the road or at stations, is something to be learned. On the journey up from San Antonio to El Paso we change the limestone water of the coast for the water impregnated variously with vegetable matter, alkali, or sulphur. This change is found to affect men as well as all descriptions of stock, and mules often times give out when hard driven immediately after drinking either the waters of the Pecos or those of any of the watering places between that river and Fort Davis. Coming down the road from El Paso to San Antonio, reversing the course of this change, the water is not found to have the same effect. Took in a supply of corn, for which we paid $2 50 per bushel. Made 28 miles, camping on the Pecos at 8 p. m.

_August 9._--To-day we passed a freshly made grave which marked a spot which had recently been the scene of a battle between a party of soldiers and the Indians. I gathered the following particulars: The soldiers, under a sergeant, were escorting a mail which, previously to the letting of our contract, had been once a month transported by the quartermaster’s department to and from Fort Davis and Fort Clarke. While the soldiers were at dinner, a few Indians came into their camp, under the protection of a white flag, asking for something to eat. As it turned out from their subsequent attack, this visit was a ruse to ascertain the strength of the party, as well as to form an idea of their vigilance. The soldiers treated them well, gave them some trifles, and the Indians partook of their hospitality. At parting they shook hands and went off on the road ahead, leaving the soldiers without the slightest suspicion of any danger. A few hundred yards from their camping place, as the wagon was descending a short steep hill into a gully which runs from the mountains to the Pecos, the soldiers were attacked by the Indians, and the sergeant was mortally wounded at the first fire. They retreated, fighting as well as they were able, while four of them carried the wounded sergeant; but an overwhelming number of the Indians pressed upon them so closely that, at his earnest request to save themselves and drop him, as he would only embarrass their efforts, they left the sergeant the prey of the Indians and gathered around the wagon. They were finally compelled to abandon the property, with the result, usual in such cases, of not being followed by the Indians, who only wanted the plunder. The soldiers came into Fort Lancaster, distant about forty miles.

The policy which requires government officers to respect a white flag in the hands of Indians has led to a number of massacres on the road. The policy of the mail men is, never, under any circumstances, to allow them near us, and much less to risk the danger of having them actually in camp. They have repeatedly tried the ruse of endeavoring to approach under the protection of a piece of dirty cotton cloth tied to a spear, but we send a ball over their heads so soon as they come within rifle range, after which warning they keep aloof.

Made 44 miles to-day.

_August 10._--Made 45 miles to-day, without anything having happened of particular interest.

_August 11._--Camped to-night a few miles east of Fort Davis, preferring to arrive there at breakfast to-morrow morning. Our mules were suffering yesterday and to-day from the effects of drinking the sulphur waters, which mineral impregnates nearly all the springs and creeks from the Pecos to Fort Davis. We are now rapidly ascending the table land of western Texas, where copious rains have been falling for some time. The grass is abundant and excellent in quality, but rather young for working mules that are compelled to make speed. The grass, combined with the sulphur water, compelled us for a day or two to be cautious not to overwork our stock. We avoid trouble by shortening our drives.

We made only 34 miles to-day.

_August 12._--At 3 a. m. this morning, accompanied by two men, I took the mail on to Fort Davis in my own light carriage, drawn by four mules, leaving the three heavy coaches and stock to come on at their leisure. Fort Davis is about 4,500 feet above the ocean; and before getting so far on my road even as this post, I had found the coaches, of which we had purchased eleven for the line, so heavy as to be unfit for the service. [The continual ascent of the roads, together with the weight the mules were compelled to haul, had fatigued them so much that I deemed it necessary to change them, if possible. To borrow some government mules for the trip to El Paso seemed to be an excellent plan, if I could procure such a privilege. I would then leave those I had here to be used as relays for the next up mail. From the information I had obtained, I had not the least doubt but that I could purchase plenty of mules in El Paso to use in stocking the upper portion of our road. I made application to Colonel Sewall, the commanding officer at this post, who, upon reflection, decided to loan me the mules I wanted. I made an arrangement which I considered a very favorable one, and it certainly was a great advantage at the time, but it afterwards proved a prolific source of trouble to me. To sustain my application for mules, I represented to Colonel Sewall my exact position; that I was the superintendent of the road and also sole agent for the contractor; that I was engaged in stocking and putting in running order this pioneer mail. I further took the liberty of stating how great an interest your department felt in the enterprise. I proposed to leave my forty-two mules at the fort, and that he should loan me thirty-six of theirs to take our coaches to El Paso. I stated to him my plan of purchasing on the Rio Grande all the mules I needed, and that I would return his at once with the first down mail. To this arrangement he assented, sending a corporal and two men with me to take charge of the mules.

I may as well mention here that, on reaching El Paso, I found myself in a position where, in consequence of inability to purchase mules, I had either to stop the mail until I could collect them in the towns up and down the valley and over the river, or else to take some of these Fort Davis mules further on my journey. Believing myself justified, under the circumstances, in deviating my promise as to the time of returning the mules, I took fourteen of them with me to Tucson; the balance, twenty-two in number, I returned at once to Fort Davis by the corporal. Of these fourteen so taken, seven were returned to Fort Davis during the period of my stay on the Pacific, while the other seven were replaced from our own herd, by virtue of an agreement which allowed Colonel Sewall to take such of ours as he wanted, to replace any of his mules which might be missing. Colonel Sewall was so indignant at my not sending back the whole number of his mules at once, that he wrote to all the posts along our line, requesting them to refuse me any favor, alleging, as his reason, my bad faith to him. He further desired the officers to continue such refusal until the mule transaction should be settled to his satisfaction. This request gave the line considerable trouble at Fort Fillmore, during my absence. On my return to Fort Davis I was unable to appease Colonel Sewall, though I explained to him the whole transaction, as I have endeavored to do here. He refused to order the quartermaster to withdraw his offensive letter to the posts on the line, although this was the point I particularly urged for his consideration, as injurious to our interests. I feel now, as I did at the time of taking the mules--which I did not do without reflection--that the circumstances justified my course; that the interest of the overland mail to the government was above the value even of the whole number of mules borrowed, and that, under these circumstances, I should have been forgiven for not keeping my promise.]

_August 13._--Left Fort Davis at 5.40 a. m. Early this morning I met the mail from Santa Fé, and, in accordance with the agreement between Mr. Giddings and myself to incorporate our two stocks, so as to perform the tri-monthly service, I sent back a portion of my own party, with orders to return as far as Fort Clarke. One great advantage of this additional force to the party going down was the greater protection the mail would receive in passing through that portion of the Indian country so recently the scene of depredations.

Made 29 miles to-day.

_August 14._--Our government mules, fresh and corn-fed, took us along at a much more rapid pace than we have been in the habit of travelling during the course of the past week.

We made 60 miles to-day.

_August 15._--Our second drive to-day was for a mile or more, through a long and narrow cañon, with the mountains bordering the Rio Grande on the east. This cañon led us into the valley of the river, at a point one hundred miles below where our road leaves it in going westward. After crossing the valley, and making a camp on the banks of the river, our road to-day turns abruptly northward. We encountered a terrible thunder storm at noon, it being the first heavy rain we have had on the road. August is one of the rainy months throughout this portion of the Rio Grande valley and Sonora; we may, therefore, expect many such storms before reaching the coast range of mountains which form the climatic boundary between California and Arizona. After a thorough drenching, we started at two o’clock, in a bright sunny afternoon, and drove slowly up the Rio Grande. Through this particular portion of the valley the rainy season is an advantage to the otherwise sandy road. Along here, animals which are fatigued from a tedious or rapid journey through Texas must be well treated or they give out. Fifty miles above here, in the neighborhood of San Eleazario, and, indeed, at all the Spanish towns along the river, the road is made much worse by the rains. The corn and wheat fields are all cultivated by irrigation, and the irrigating ditches, called _acequias_, liable to be overflowed from the rain, cross the roads in many places. Camped to-night on a slough of the river.

Made 40 miles to-day.

_August 16._--The road proving so very muddy in some places, and heavy from sand in others, besides finding it was growing more and more muddy as we proceeded, I took my light four-mule carriage, with a change of animals, left all our heavy coaches and baggage, and started on with the mails. We reached the _presidio_ of San Elearan at 7 p. m. to-day; there we changed our mail, and then pushed on, after dark, for Socorro, where the conductor, with his train, was waiting to take the mail through to Santa Fé. Our drive from San Elearan to Socorro was at a slow walk through mud and water all the way, caused by the recent rains overflowing the ditches. Many portions of the surrounding country were covered with water like a lake.

Made 43 miles to-day.

_August 17._--Rained all night, showering during the morning. I went nineteen miles to-day, to Franklin, El Paso. The Santa Fé mail went on to its destination. The quartermaster at Fort Bliss very kindly gave me the use of his blacksmith shop in which to repair one of my wagons, by which timely aid I was enabled to place it in a pretty decent condition for service. Looked about me for mules to complete my outfit for the Pimos villages, but much to my disappointment could find none suited to our service. Mules are scarce at El Paso.

_August 18._--Another rainy day, with occasional sunshine. Found an abundance of very excellent fruit at El Paso: pears, peaches, and particularly grapes. The heavy train came in to-day.

_August 19._--A beautiful day; I find some difficulty in purchasing the required corn for my mules. Last year the corn crop of this valley was a partial failure, in consequence of which the corn at present in use here is brought from Chihuahua; I pay equal to about $2 50 per bushel. I find it impossible to purchase mules and get them here in season to be of use for the next mail going west, due here on the 21st or 22d. To insure that the next mail shall go forward with despatch, I deemed it best to-day to send the train up the river with directions to proceed as far as Fort Fillmore, 50 miles above El Paso, there to await the coming mail. Our mules need shoeing, and some other preparations are required for the journey. I have bought all the mules I could find, and lastly borrowed fourteen from the herd of government mules which I brought from Fort Davis. The others I returned in charge of the corporal who came up with me, (see journal, August 2.) I purchased to-day a pair of large Missouri mules, and at once sent my small wagon and nine mules down to the Presidio, 25 miles below El Paso, with directions to receive the up mail there, and bring it with all speed to Fort Fillmore; this I planned to save time.

_August 20._--Was engaged all day in preparing the way, as far as possible, to have the business of the line run smoothly during my absence, I stored my two heavy coaches to wait the chances of the future.

_August 21._--Early this afternoon an express came in from Captain Holliday, who was _en route_ to Fort Fillmore, for the purposes stated under date of August 19. He wrote me that his wagon had broken down, with the further prospect of being scarcely able to reach the post with it. I immediately purchased a private carriage, the only one in El Paso any way suited to our purpose. By the kindness of Colonel Reeves, commanding Fort Bliss, who loaned me a team, I was enabled to despatch the carriage for Fort Fillmore this evening. I had no mules at Franklin with which to send it up. At 10 p.m. the mail and Mr. Giddings came in from San Antonio, having left there August 9, the contract day. Our coach arrived here with a broken pole which is by no means a small obstacle in this remote country, particularly when the accident chances to happen after dark and no other carriage is to be obtained, while the mail must go on. By splicing we made it answer our present purpose, though consuming nearly all night in preparations.

_August 22._--Left El Paso at three o’clock, a. m., and found the roads heavy all the way along the river. Succeeded in reaching Fort Fillmore at six o’clock, p. m., after a day’s work of forty-two miles. I found the train encamped ready for departure, only waiting my arrival with the mail. We examined the Rio Grande to-night, preparatory to crossing; found the river not fordable, and also found there would be too much risk in attempting to ferry over in the night; thus we are unwillingly compelled to remain encamped on the east bank until to-morrow morning. Another source of trouble was my carriages; I found that neither of those I now had were fit to go on the road. Those we had originally purchased, two of which I brought up with me, were too heavy for the mules, while the two I now had were not strong enough to carry the required loads. In this dilemma I despatched two men to Las Cruces, six miles above Fort Fillmore, giving them orders to purchase at any fair price, if suited to our purpose, a second-hand carriage which we heard was there for sale. My messengers returned about two o’clock in the morning with an old ambulance, which answered a good purpose all the way to San Diego. By setting the axletrees of one of my other carriages I thought to secure two, which would answer a temporary purpose. Made 44 miles to-day.