Concise History of New Mexico

The Old Santa Fe Trail

By COLONEL HENRY INMAN

CHAPTER XXI.
FOOLING STAGE ROBBERS.

The Wagon Mound, so called from its resemblance to a covered army-wagon,
is a rocky mesa forty miles from Point of Rocks, westwardly.
The stretch of the Trail from the latter to the mound has been
the scene of some desperate encounters, only exceeded in number
and sanguinary results by those which have occurred in the region of
Pawnee Rock, the crossing of the Walnut, Pawnee Fork, and Cow Creek.

One of the most remarkable stories of this Wagon Mound country dealt
with the nerve and bravery exhibited by John L. Hatcher in defence
of his life, and those of the men in his caravan, about 1858.

Hatcher was a noted trader and merchant of New Mexico. He was also
celebrated as an Indian fighter, and his name was a terror to the
savages who infested the settlements of New Mexico and raided the Trail.

He left Taos, where he then resided, in the summer, with his caravan
loaded with furs and pelts destined for Westport Landing; to be
forwarded from there to St. Louis, the only market for furs in the
far West. His train was a small one, comprising about fifteen wagons
and handled by about as many men, including himself. At the date
of his adventure the Indians were believed to be at peace with
everybody; a false idea, as Hatcher well knew, for there never was
such a condition of affairs as absolute immunity from their attacks.
While it might be true that the old men refrained for a time from
starting out on the war-path, there were ever the vastly greater
number of restless young warriors who had not yet earned their eagle
feathers, who could not be controlled by their chiefs, and who were
always engaged in marauding, either among the border settlements
or along the line of the Trail.

When Hatcher was approaching the immediate vicinity of Wagon Mound,[66]
with his train strung out in single column, to his great astonishment
there suddenly charged on him from over the hill about three hundred
savages, all feather-bedecked and painted in the highest style of
Indian art. As they rode toward the caravan, they gave the sign
of peace, which Hatcher accepted for the time as true, although he
knew them well. However, he invited the head men to some refreshment,
as was usual on such occasions in those days, throwing a blanket
on the ground, on which sugar in abundance was served out.
The sweet-toothed warriors helped themselves liberally, and affected
much delight at the way they were being treated; but Hatcher, with
his knowledge of the savage character, was firm in the belief that
they came for no other purpose than to rob the caravan and kill him
and his men.

They were Comanches, and one of the most noted chiefs of the tribe
was in command of the band, with some inferior chiefs under him.
I think it was Old Wolf, a very old man then, whose raids into Texas
had made his name a terror to the Mexicans living on the border.

While the chiefs were eating their saccharine lunch, Hatcher was
losing no time in forming his wagons into a corral, but he told his
friends afterward that he had no idea that either he or any of his
men would escape; only fifteen or sixteen men against over three
hundred merciless savages, and those the worst on the continent,
and a small corral--the chances were totally hopeless! Nothing but
a desperate action could avail, and maybe not even that.[67] Hatcher,
after the other head men had finished eating, asked the old chief
to send his young warriors away over the hill. They were all sitting
close to one of the wagons, Old Wolf, in fact, leaning against the
wheel resting on his blanket, with Hatcher next him on his right.
Hatcher was so earnest in his appeal to have the young men sent away,
that both the venerable villain and his other chiefs rose and were
standing. Without a moment's notice or the slightest warning,
Hatcher reached with his left hand and grabbed Old Wolf by his
scalp-lock, and with his right drew his butcher-knife from its
scabbard and thrust it at the throat of the chief. All this was
done in an instant, as quick as lightning; no one had time to move.
The situation was remarkable. The little, wiry man, surrounded by
eight or nine of the most renowned warriors of the dreaded Comanches,
stood firm; everybody was breathless; not a word did the savages say.
Hatcher then said again to Old Wolf, in the most determined manner:
"Send your young men over the hill at once, or I'll kill you right
where you are!" holding on to the hair of the savage with his left
hand and keeping the knife at his throat.

The other Indians did not dare to make a move; they knew what kind of
a man Hatcher was; they knew he would do as he had said, and that if
they attempted a rescue he would kill their favourite chief in a second.

Old Wolf shook his head defiantly in the negative. Hatcher repeated
his order, getting madder all the time: "Send your young men over
the hill; I tell you!" Old Wolf was still stubborn; he shook his
head again. Hatcher gave him another chance: "Send your young men
over the hill, I tell you, or I'll scalp you alive as you are!"
Again the chief shook his head. Then Hatcher, still holding on the
hair of his stubborn victim, commenced to make an incision in the
head of Old Wolf, for the determined man was bound to carry out his
threat; but he began very slowly.

As the chief felt the blood trickle down his forehead, he weakened.
He ordered his next in command to send the young men over the hill
and out of sight. The order was repeated immediately to the warriors,
who were astonished spectators of the strange scene, and they quickly
mounted their horses and rode away over the hill as fast as they
could thump their animals' sides with their legs, leaving only five
or six chiefs with Old Wolf and Hatcher.

Hatcher held on like grim death to the old chief's head, and immediately
ordered his men to throw the robes out of the wagons as quickly as
they could, and get inside themselves. This was promptly obeyed,
and when they were all under the cover of the wagon sheets, Hatcher
let go of his victim's hair, and, with a last kick, told him and his
friends that they could leave. They went off, and did not return.

Some laughable incidents have enlivened the generally sanguinary
history of the Old Santa Fe Trail, but they were very serious at
the time to those who were the actors, and their ludicrousness came
after all was over.

In the late summer of 1866, a thieving band of Apaches came into the
vicinity of Fort Union, New Mexico, and after carefully reconnoitring
the whole region and getting at the manner in which the stock
belonging to the fort was herded, they secreted themselves in the
Turkey Mountains overlooking the entire reservation, and lay in wait
for several days, watching for a favourable moment to make a raid
into the valley and drive off the herd.

Selecting an occasion when the guard was weak and not very alert,
they in broad daylight crawled under the cover of a hill, and,
mounting their horses, dashed out with the most unearthly yells and
down among the animals that were quietly grazing close to the fort,
which terrified these so greatly that they broke away from the herders,
and started at their best gait toward the mountains, closely followed
by the savages.

The astonished soldiers used every effort to avert the evident loss
of their charge, and many shots were exchanged in the running fight
that ensued; but the Indians were too strong for them, and they were
forced to abandon the chase.

Among the herders was a bugler boy, who was remarkable for his bravery
in the skirmish and for his untiring endeavours to turn the animals
back toward the fort, but all without avail; on they went, with the
savages, close to their heels, giving vent to the most vociferous
shouts of exultation, and directing the most obscene and insulting
gesticulations to the soldiers that were after them.

While this exciting contest for the mastery was going on, an old
Apache chief dashed in the rear of the bold bugler boy, and could,
without doubt, easily have killed the little fellow; but instead of
doing this, from some idea of a good joke, or for some other
incomprehensible reason, his natural blood-thirsty instinct was
changed, and he merely knocked the bugler's hat from his head with
the flat of his hand, and at the same time encouragingly stroked his
hair, as much as to say: "You are a brave boy," and then rode off
without doing him any harm.

Thirty years ago last August, I was riding from Fort Larned to Fort
Union, New Mexico, in the overland coach. I had one of my clerks
with me; we were the only passengers, and arrived at Fort Dodge,
which was the commencement of the "long route," at midnight.
There we changed drivers, and at the break of day were some
twenty-four miles on our lonely journey. The coach was rattling
along at a breakneck gait, and I saw that something was evidently
wrong. Looking out of one of the doors, I noticed that our Jehu was
in a beastly state of intoxication. It was a most dangerous portion
of the Trail; the Indians were not in the best of humours, and an
attack was not at all improbable before we arrived at the next
station, Fort Lyon.

I said to my clerk that something must be done; so I ordered the
driver to halt, which he did willingly, got out, and found that,
notwithstanding his drunken mood, he was very affable and disposed
to be full of fun. I suggested that he get inside the coach and
lie down to sleep off his potations, to which he readily assented,
while I and my clerk, after snugly fixing him on the cushions,
got on the boot, I taking the lines, he seizing an old trace-chain,
with which he pounded the mules along; for we felt ourselves in a
ticklish predicament should we come across any of the brigands of
the plains, on that lonely route, with the animals to look out for,
and only two of us to do the fighting.

Suddenly we saw sitting on the bank of the Arkansas River, about
a dozen rods from the Trail, an antiquated-looking savage with his
war-bonnet on, and armed with a long lance and his bow and arrows.
We did not care a cent for him, but I thought he might be one of
the tribe's runners, lying in wait to discover the condition of the
coach--whether it had an escort, and how many were riding in it, and
that then he would go and tell how ridiculously small the outfit was,
and swoop down on us with a band of his colleagues, that were hidden
somewhere in the sand hills south of the river. He rose as we came
near, and made the sign, after he had given vent to a series of
"How's!" that he wanted to talk; but we were not anxious for any
general conversation with his savage majesty just then, so my clerk
applied the trace-chain more vigorously to the tired mules, in order
to get as many miles between him and the coach as we could before
he could get over into the sand hills and back.

It was, fortunately, a false alarm; the old warrior perhaps had no
intentions of disturbing us. We arrived at Fort Lyon in good season,
with our valorous driver absolutely sobered, requesting me to say
nothing about his accident, which, of course, I did not.

As has been stated, the caravans bound for Santa Fe and the various
forts along the line of the Old Trail did not leave the eastern end
of the route until the grass on the plains, on which the animals
depended solely for subsistence the whole way, grew sufficiently to
sustain them, which was usually about the middle of May. But a great
many years ago, one of the high officials of the quartermaster's
department at Washington, who had never been for a moment on duty
on the frontier in his life, found a good deal of fault with what he
thought the dilatoriness of the officer in charge at Fort Leavenworth,
who controlled the question of transportation for the several forts
scattered all over the West, for not getting the freight caravans
started earlier, which the functionary at the capital said must and
should be done. He insisted that they must leave the Missouri River
by the middle of April, a month earlier than usual, and came out
himself to superintend the matter. He made the contracts accordingly,
easily finding contractors that suited him. He then wrote to
headquarters in a triumphant manner that he had revolutionized the
whole system of army transportation of supplies to the military posts.
Delighted with his success, he rode out about the second week of May
to Salt Creek, only three miles from the fort, and, very much to his
astonishment, found his teams, which he had believed to be on the
way to Santa Fe a month ago, snugly encamped. They had "started,"
just as was agreed.

There are, or rather were, hundreds of stories current thirty-five
years ago of stage-coach adventures on the Trail; a volume could be
filled with them, but I must confine myself to a few.

John Chisholm was a famous ranchman a long while ago, who had so many
cattle that it was said he did not know their number himself. At one
time he had a large contract to furnish beef to an Indian agency
in Arizona; he had just delivered an immense herd there, and very
wisely, after receiving his cash for them, sent most of it on to
Santa Fe in advance of his own journey. When he arrived there,
he started for the Missouri River with a thousand dollars and
sufficient small change to meet his current expenses on the road.

The very first night out from Santa Fe, the coach was halted by a
band of men who had been watching Chisholm's movements from the time
he left the agency in Arizona. The instant the stage came to a
standstill, Chisholm divined what it meant, and had time to thrust
a roll of money down one of the legs of his trousers before the door
was thrown back and he was ordered to fork over what he had.

He invited the robbers to search him, and to take what they might
find, but said he was not in a financial condition at that juncture
to turn over much. The thieves found his watch, took that, and then
began to search him. As luck would have it, they entirely missed
the roll that was down his leg, and discovered but a two-dollar bill
in his vest. When he told them it was all he had to buy grub on
the road, one of the robbers handed him a silver dollar, remarking
as he did so: "That a man who was mean enough to travel with only
two dollars ought to starve, but he would give him the dollar just
to let him know that he was dealing with gentlemen!"

One of the essentials to the comfort of the average soldier is
tobacco. He must have it; he would sooner forego any component part
of his ration than give it up.

In November, 1865, a detachment of Company L, of the Eleventh Kansas
Volunteers, and of the Second Colorado were ordered from Fort Larned
to Fort Lyon on a scouting expedition along the line of the Trail,
the savages having been very active in their raids on the freight caravans.

In a short time their tobacco began to run low, and as there was no
settlement of any kind between the two military posts, there was no
chance to replenish their stock. One night, while encamped on the
Arkansas, the only piece that was left in the whole command, about
half a plug, was unfortunately lost, and there was dismay in the
camp when the fact was announced. Hours were spent in searching for
the missing treasure. The next morning the march was delayed for
some time, while further diligent search was instituted by all hands,
but without result, and the command set out on its weary tramp,
as disconsolate as may well be imagined by those who are victims to
the habit of chewing the weed.

Arriving at Fort Lyon, to their greater discomfort it was learned
that the sutler at that post was entirely out of the coveted article,
and the troops began their return journey more disconsolate than ever.
Dry leaves, grass, and even small bits of twigs, were chewed as a
substitute, until, reaching the spot where they had lost the part of
a plug, they determined to remain there that night and begin a more
vigorous hunt for the missing piece. Just before dark their efforts
were rewarded; one of the men found it, and such a scramble occurred
for even the smallest nibble at it! Enormous prices were given for
a single chew. It opened at one dollar for a mere sliver, rose to
five, and closed at ten dollars when the last morsel was left.