USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
EXPERIENCES ALONG THE RIO COLORADO
The southern bank at the time was considered within California, though that State's claim ran back only a few hundred yards from the river at any point. The claim never was popular, however, and on one occasion a San Diego County tax collector was thrown into jail for attempting to enforce the payment of a tax levy.
In early days, the mouth of the Gila was the center of warfare between Indian tribes. They seemed, on the whole, to have behaved rather decently toward the Americans, considering the character of some of the immigrants that had drifted into the region. In 1855 there was a bloody war between the Yumas and the Cocopahs, the latter said to have been backed by Mexicans. The Cocopahs at first were victorious, but the Yumas called to their aid about two hundred and fifty Indians, from farther up the river, mainly Mojaves and Chemehnevis and effectually disposed of their adversaries a few months later. The Cocopahs had been warned, however, and while their villages were destroyed, they lost only four warriors.
There was a lynching in Arizona City about 1859. A man named Dow, said to have been a relative of Neal Dow, the early prohibition advocate, had a con- tract to cut wood for the steamers on the Colorado below Yuma. He and a Ger- man boy in his employ were killed by a Mexican wood-chopper, who then started southward with Dow's boat, loaded with supplies, with the expectation of joining a filibustering party at San Filipe, ninety miles southward. The boat was recog- nized, however, by Captain Sun, chief of the Cocopahs, who ordered his people to seize the Mexican. On the way up the river they discovered the body of the
140
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
German boy. When, with their prisoner and evidence, they reached the settle- ment there was scant merey and the Mexican was quickly hanged.
In the last days of 1863, when J. Ross Browne reached Fort Yuma, that post was under command of Colonel Bennett. He found the locality beautiful even in its desolation, but he gave publicity to the slanders that since have rested upon Yuma's fair fame-how the thermometer dried up in summer and how there was no juice left in anything living or dead; how officers and soldiers walked about creaking; mules could only bray at night; snakes found a difficulty in bending their bodies and horned frogs died of apoplexy; chickens came out of the shell ready cooked; bacon was eaten with a spoon and butter had to stand an hour in the sun before the flies became dry enough for use.
At that time Arizona City was the distributing point for silver mining camps up the river. There were gold diggings at La Paz and silver and lead were being mined around Castle Dome. The season was a dry one, however, and miners were coming out, bound for civilization, bronzed, battered, ragged and hungry.
To facilitate the shipment of freight to Arizona military posts, a quarter- master's depot was established by Capt. W. B. Hooper in 1864 on the Arizona side. This depot was destroyed by fire three years later, but the rebuilt struc- tures still are in use, occupied by the United States Reclamation Service. Till the passing of the railroad, in 1878, Yuma's principal industry was in the forwarding of freight to Colorado river or interior points and in the feeding of the emigrant or the freighter.
Some business there was due to mining excitements, particularly that of Gila City in 1858 and that near La Paz four years later. One of the merchants at La Paz was John G. Campbell, who floated into the camp on a raft from El Dorado Cañon. La Paz still was a considerable place in 1864 and was made the seat of government for the new county of Yuma, but, later most of its population and business went to Ehrenberg and the county seat was changed to Arizona City, the present Yuma.
Ehrenberg, first known as Mineral City, was established early in 1870 at a good river crossing, six miles above La Paz, by Michael Goldwater and named after Hermann Ehrenberg. Ehrenberg had been in the Texan war for inde- pendence, had had broad experience in the West, had served with Frémont in California and was in Tubac in 1856. He was killed at Palm Springs on the Colo- rado desert in California in June, 1866. The crime was charged to Indians, but may have been that of a white man named Smith. The town became one of the most important in Arizona, the crossing point for most of the freight and passen- gers of northern Arizona, but died with the coming of the railroad to Yuma. The other steamer landings of the Colorado, dating before 1864 now are merely names.
ORGANIZING THE GADSDEN PURCHASE
The Gadsden Purchase was added to the area of New Mexico by the terms of a congressional aet of Angust 4, 1854. The succeeding New Mexico Legislature on January 18, 1855, added the district of Doña Ana County. The Editor has found an old map of New Mexico, on which the counties are shown as mere hands, drawn from east to west, some of them from Texas to California. In this Rio Arriba County was the northernmost strip. Next was Santa Ana, taking in Fort Defianee and the Grand Canon region. Then came Bernalillo, which included
141
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
Fort Mojave. The Needles section, only a few miles below, was in Valencia and then Socorro County took in everything southward to the Gila, below which lay the County of Arizona. There was very little government outside of the military posts, every man apparently being a law unto himself. Chas. D. Poston seems to have assumed the office of Recorder at Tubac and there were petty peace offi- cers at Tucson and a couple of other points. There was little use in arresting a malefactor, however, for the county seat was at Mesilla and the journey thence was too arduous and too expensive for the transportation of witnesses. It is told that a few criminals were dispatched thither, but there is no record avail- able of their punishment thereafter.
These conditions early developed a demand for a separate political existence. The slavery agitation also had something to do with the case, for a large pro- portion of the leading citizens of Tucson and Tubac were of southern birth and sympathies. In Tucson, August 29, 1856, was held a convention at which demand was made for the organization of a separate Territory. This convention was headed by Mayor M. Aldrich of Tucson. Other members noted were Granville H. Oury (who had been elected a member of the New Mexico Legislature), Henry Ehrenberg, who presumably came from Colorado City; James Douglas of Sopori, José M. Martinez of San Xavier, G. K. Terry, who was secretary, W. N. Bonner, N. P. Cook, Ignacio Ortiz and J. D. L. Pack. Nathan P. Cook later was elected Delegate, to present the cause in Congress, wherein he appeared before the House Committee on Territories in January, 1857, bearing a memorial with 260 names, but claiming a white population of 10,000, which would appear to have been about 5,000 in excess of the actual figures, including Mexicans. The committee recog- nized the fact that some sort of government was necessary and recommended a bill for the organization of a judicial district, covering the Gadsden purchase, and for the appointment of a Surveyor-General, with a degree of authority in the adjustment of titles. A bill to this effect was passed by the Senate but not made a law. In the same year the President recommended a separate government for Arizona.
In the congressional session that began in December, 1857, Senator Gwin of California was the author of a bill for the organization of the Territory of Arizona, to embrace the land south of the Gila and including Doña Ana County in New Mexico, with an extension eastward to Texas. With the exception of the country east of the Rio Grande, this embraced the district which generally had been known theretofore as Arizona. The people of Tucson were enthusiastic over this bill and in September, in the fullness of their hope, chose Sylvester Mowry as their Delegate to Congress and sent him to Washington. But he was not admitted to the councils of the nation, for the bill failed of passage though favor- ably reported. Mowry was re-elected to his honorary position thereafter and spent the better part of several years lobbying in behalf of Arizona, securing the introduction of bills in December, 1858, and in January, 1859. He secured the co-operation of the people of southern New Mexico and appeared before a con- vention held in Mesilla June 19, 1859, which approved his acts and renominated him. A part of this convention went forthwith to Tucson, where within a fort- night was held a joint convention of the two sections, presided over hy John Walker. There would appear to have been a decided effort to get out the vote
142
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
of the next election in September, for thereat no less than 2,164 ballots werc recorded as cast.
NO LAW WEST OF THE PECOS
Mowry was a man of much original thought and of energy and seemed to have had no hesitation in spending his money freely in forwarding his ends. When he was chosen honorary delegate to Congress, in 1857, he issued, at his own cost, several pamphlets, and made many speeches in the east, all in support of the idea that Arizona should be created a separate Territory. In this it should be understood that the Arizona of that day constituted the southern half of the two southwestern sub-divisions, its eastern boundary either the Rio Grande or a line a bit to the eastward of El Paso, with Mesilla on the Rio Grande and Tucson the only settlements of any importance. In effect, Arizona was little more than the Gadsden Purchase. Mowry warmly combated the idea that its population was made up mainly of the worst of humanity. As an instance of the decency of the people, he copied a letter from Poston in which mention was made of the resti- tution to citizens of Mexico of property than had been stolen by Americans, from whom the loot in turn was taken by citizens of Tucson. The robbers were arrested by the volunteer peace forces and were turned over for punishment to Major Steen of the Dragoons. There was a bit of evidence to the contrary, however. A letter of the period told, "We are living without the protection of law or the ameliorations of society. New Mexico affords us no protection. We have not even received an order for an election. Every one goes armed to the teeth and a diffi- culty is sure to prove fatal. In this state of affairs it is impossible to hold an election."
There must have been even more bitterness in southern New Mexico than in Arizona proper, for at the Mesilla meeting there was complaint that there had been no court in that locality for three years and there was a declaration to the effect that the south would take no part in New Mexican elections till justice had been done in this respect.
EFFORTS TO SECURE A GOVERNMENT
In 1859 Congress was petitioned by the people of southern New Mexico, in- cluding Tucson and the settlements of the Mesilla Valley, to form a new Terri- tory to be called Arizona. This action met with no Congressional response.
The Ninth New Mexican Legislature, by an act approved February 1, 1860, created the County of Arizona out of the Gadsden Purchase, with its county seat at Tubac. In 1862 the succeeding Legislature added the eastern part of the county to Dona Ana County and changed the county seat to Tucson, for little had been left of Tubac by that time.
Somewhat of importance was a constitutional convention of thirty-one dele- gates, held in Tucson early in April, 1860, Jas. A. Lucas was President and Granville H. Oury and T. M. Turner were secretaries. The list of places rep- resented is of particular interest, embracing Mesilla, Santa Rita del Cobre, Las Cruces, Doña Ana, La Mesa, Santo Tomas, Picacho, Amoles, Tucson, Arivaca, Tubac, Sonoita, Gila City and Calabazas. The new Territory of Arizona was to include all of New Mexico south of latitude 33 deg. 40 min. and was to have four counties about evenly divided on north and south lines. These counties
143
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
were: Doña Ana, east of the Rio Grande; Mesilla, from the Rio Grande west to the Chiricahua Mountains; Ewell (after Capt. B. S. Ewell, who was seated in the convention as a guest of honor) to a line crossing the "Little Desert," wher- ever that might have been; and Castle Dome, which included the country west to the Colorado River. A Governor was elected, Dr. L. S. Owings of Mesilla.
This last convention seems to have been appreciated as an effort to estab- lish some sort of de facto administration till such time as Congress should act. Having no power of enforcement of its decrees, its recommendations went for naught. It is interesting to note, however, that the "Governor" nominated a full set of officials including : Secretary of State, J. A. Lucas; Controller, J. H. Wells; Treasurer, M. Aldrich; Marshal, Sam G. Bean; Chief Justice, G. H. Oury; Associate Justices, Edward McGowan and S. W. Cozzens (author of "The Marvellons Country") ; Major General ( !), W. C. Wordsworth; Adjutant- General, Palatine Robinson. .
In 1860, Senator Green of Missouri failed to get consideration for a bill to provide temporary government for "the Territory of Arizuma." Sen. Jef- ferson Davis had a similar bill. A fall election was held, at which "Ned" McGowan, of unhappy Californian memory, was chosen to succeed Mowry in the latter's unpaid and thankless job.
All through the story of the day ran a subordinate, half-concealed thread of secession, still existent even after the entry of federal troops and the driving out of the Texas column. If Mowry were in the plot, his activities soon were pent up in Yuma. Oury had nominal election in 1861 to represent Arizona in the Confederate Congress, but at first secured no official recognition from that body, though he made his laborious way through to Richmond. It is evident that his election had been sub rosa. It was even charged that the national gov- ernment abandoned its Arizona posts on the theory that it would be poor mili- tary policy to protect the property of rebels against even such a common foe as the Apache. There was correspondence through Tucson between the Confed- erate authorities and Governor Pesquiera of Sonora, who appeared "open to argument," but whose own position was too precarious for the admission of foreign complications. Whatever doubts there may have been concerning the loyalty of Arizona were resolved by the coming of the California Column.
A TERRITORY ORGANIZED AT LAST
Again, in 1862, a bill for the organization of a territorial government for Arizona came up in Congress, but without the complication of slavery, which in the text of the measure expressly was prohibited. The bill gave Arizona its present eastern boundary, a change probably dne to the activities of Delegate John II. Watts of New Mexico. There was much debate over the matter in Congress, the opposition, very logically, showing that the proposed subdivision had within its 100,000 square miles a large prospect of official expense that could hardly be borne by a population, exclusive of Indians, but inclusive of Mexicans, of only 6,500. The bill passed the House May 8, by a narrow margin. Its final consideration in the Senate was delayed till the following February and on the 12th of that month it was passed by a vote of 25 to 12, after there had been eliminated a paragraph that made Tucson the seat of government. The act became a law by the signature of President Lincoln February 24.
144
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
Much of the credit (if credit be the proper word) for the passage of the bill belonged to Chas. D. Poston, who about that time received his purely hon- orary brevet of "Colonel." He rarely was anything but frank and in an oft- quoted paragraph of his reminiscences told just how the lobby parceled out the offices in the new Territory. He told how a number of "lame ducks" had to be provided for, a task undertaken over an oyster supper in Washington. A con- siderable number of statesmen, who had only a hazy idea of the location of Arizona, offered themselves as political missionaries for service in the savage land. The "slate" finally was completed and every available office had been filled when Poston suddenly appreciated the fact that his own name did not appear upon the list and exclaimed, "Gentlemen, what is to become of me?" There was only a brief pause, for around the table were politicians of rare resources. The prospective Governor Gurley answered, "Oh, we'll make you Indian Agent." And so it came to pass, and all was done in order as had been planned.
RECOGNIZED BY THE CONFEDERACY
Arizona also had had Confederate acceptance, for on February 14, 1862, President Jefferson Davis had signed a bill, passed at Richmond January 18, organizing the Territory of Arizona, though, upon the original southern lines, touching Texas. In his message to Congress, the President stated he had ap- pointed officers for the new Territory, but no list is available. Arizona, though considered a part of the Confederacy, was one of the localities specifically ex- cepted from the operation of the alien-enemy law. As federal troops already were spreading over the Southwest, the law here would have been difficult of enforcement. Oury, who for some time had been lobbying around Richmond, was admitted finally as Delegate to the Confederate Congress from Arizona, to date from January, but, his mission accomplished and there being no way to communicate with his constituents or directly serve them, he appears to have resigned in March and to have been succeeded by M. H. McWillie, apparently not an Arizonan. Oury, a typical southern fire-eater, found more congenial employment forthwith in the military arm.
From the Confederate Congress Oury made his way straight back to Mesilla in May, and then proceeded to organize and equip a battalion of Arizona and California men for service on the side of the Confederacy. This organization was known as the First Arizona and was attached to General Sibley's com- mand. Even the records of the Oury family have little concerning the service of this Arizona command, though it is known that it escorted General J. E. Johnston to Louisiana. Thereafter, Colonel Oury was in Louisiana for a time, returning and serving on the Rio Grande as Provost Marshal, with headquarters at Brownsville. After the surrender of General Lee, Colonel Oury, with twelve other Confederate officials fled into Mexico, escorting General Shelby and Judge Terry, crossing the Rio Grande in June, 1865. Mrs. Oury accompanied the party. The Mexican trip consumed about six months, when Oury, preferring the United States even under Yankee control, went back to Tucson, which was his home for a while, though he thereafter lived in Phoenix and in Florence.
CHAPTER XI WITH THE STARS AND STRIPES
The Regular Army in Arizona and Its Leaders-Southwestern Military Posts-Aban- donment at the Outbreak of the Civil War-Forts and Camps, Past and Present.
While there was a disposition in pioneer days to belittle the service of the regular army in its campaigns against the Apache, sober thought in later days cannot fail to give large credit to the regulars who garrisoned the little, yet undermanned, posts of the Southwest. As a rule, a regiment of cavalry and one of infantry were all that could be allotted to Arizona, for the entire army of those days numbered only 25,000 officers and men and there had to be provision for the sea-coast forts, as well as for fighting Sioux, Nez Perces and Modocs. Let it be remembered that when Crook and Miles were given adequate forces they promptly quelled large uprisings and that almost all other service was, in a way, that of police, under the worst of conditions.
Driving these soldiers was a sense of stern duty, joined with the high tra- ditions of their service and the kinship of white men and the resentment that was felt over atrocities such as have been chronicled elsewhere. In no sense were the regiments western ones and their service usually was so severe that they had to be transferred after a year or so to posts nearer the centers of civilization.
Those were the days before the khaki and big hat. Equipped by an un- thinking government with frogged blue blouses and with narrow caps that left their ears to be sunburned, with high riding boots, sometimes laden with clank- ing sabers, often followed by recruits only lately from the cities, the officers led the way through the canons and up the cliffs and through the cactus of the deserts, into the snows of the mountains and in the scorching heat of the south- ern alkali plains, contemptuous alike of fatigue and death. There even is an army legend that a "shave-tail" lieutenant led a saber charge against Apaches and thus won his maiden battle.
Yet it should be told that service in the Southwest ever was welcomed by the American officer, for there he found things to do that were soldierly and that were far removed from the petty restrictions of drill and the close-order discipline of the eastern posts. In Arizona was laid the foundation of the mili- tary tactics of to-day, taught by the Apaches. The Indians of the Northwest fought in the open and, whenever their number justified, in some sort of forma- tion. The Apache, on the contrary, took shelter where he could find it, and utilized a rock the size of his fist behind which to fall if no larger rock were at hand. The Apache blended with the landscape, save for his foolish, colored turban and, while not lacking in individual courage when necessity arose, still
145
146
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
preferred to ambush his enemy and to protect himself to as great an extent as possible. These tactics soon were adopted by the American soldier, who fol- lowed the lead of the Indian scouts of his command and who soon learned to worm his way up a hillside, in comparative safety, in battle formations unknown to his drill books. From this experience years later was evolved the American skirmish drill, in the army called "extended order," though fiercely fought by the old-school advocates, who preferred the shock and close-order methods that had prevailed from the time of the Macedonian phalanx down through the days of Frederick the Great.
POSTS THAT WERE FORTS IN NAME ONLY
The military posts of the American frontier were crude and rough beyond description, usually a mere cluster of adobe buildings set around an open space, in compliment termed a parade ground, in its center a flag pole bearing the Stars and Stripes. It is probable that often the soldier of that day turned toward the Flag to renew a sense of devotion that had been severely tried in a land where even God himself seemed very far away and the power of the Nation merely a memory of days agone. There were long days of waiting till the call of "boots and saddles" was a profound relief from approaching stagnation. Of amusements there were few and it is not unnatural that many of the pioneer officers and men turned toward the sutler's store too often in an effort to stimu- late a conviviality that had lagged amid the desolate surroundings.
It is probable that the wives of the older generation of officers usually look back almost with horror to their Arizona experiences. Penned up in small mud houses, destitute of all conveniences, with a society limited to only a few of their own kind, with the ever-present fear that the call of "boots and saddles" some day would leave them desolate, it must be said that the part the women played was in itself no less heroic than that of their husbands. Something of this is told by Mrs. Summerhayes in "Vanished Arizona."
In a work such as this history should be preserved the list made by Bourke, himself too modest to include his own name, of the officers to whom large credit is due for the effective work of the early '70s. Of these frontier heroes the gallant Captain writes :
The old settlers in both Northern and Southern Arizona still speak in terms of cordial appreciation of the services of officers like Hall, Taylor, Burns, Almy, Thomas, Rockwell, Price, Parkhurst, Michler, Adam, Woodson, Hamilton, Babcock, Schuyler and Watts, all of the Fifth Cavalry; Ross, Reilley, Sherwood, Theller and Major Miles of the Twenty-first Infantry; Garvey, Bomus, Carr, Grant, Bernard, Brodie, Vail, Wessendorf, MeGregor, Hein, Winters, Harris, Sanford and others of the First Cavalry; Randall, Manning, Rice and others of the Twenty-third Infantry; Gerald Russell, Morton, Crawford, Cushing, Cradlebaugh of the Third Cavalry; Burne of the Twelfth Infantry, and many others who, during this cam- paign (of 1872) or immediately preceding it, had rendered themselves conspicuous by most efficient service. The army of the United States has no reason to be ashamed of the men who wore its uniform during the dark and troubled period of Arizona's history; they were grand men; they had their faults as many other people have, but they never flinched from danger or privation.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.