USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 15
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ORGANIZATION OF THE MORMON BATTALION
While General Kearny was making his more hurried way to California with a detachment of cavalry, a larger military body, of infantry, followed from Santa Fé, comprising the famous Mormon Battalion, under the command of Lieut .- Col. P. St. George Cooke. This body marched southward a considerable distance, down the Rio Grande, thence westward to the San Pedro, thence fifty- five miles northward, where a trail was taken to Tucson, to the Pima villages, and then down the Gila.
The Mormon Battalion was one of the most remarkable military bodies ever formed. It was recruited in Missouri among a people persecuted because of their religion and practically outlawed both by the State and Nation. Their leaders threatened with death and threatened with pillage in their temple city of Nauvoo in western Illinois, as well as in Missouri, they had finally decided to move west- ward, in the hope of finding a promised land, wherein they could dwell without molestation.
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This desire was conveyed through Mormon channels to President Polk, to whom, about the same time, went a suggestion that from these Mormons might be recruited a sturdy band of volunteer soldiery that would serve well in conquering and occupying California. Elder J. C. Little of the Latter Day Saints' New England Conference, went to Washington, at first with the idea of securing for the Mormons work in the construction of a number of stockade posts, which were designed along the line of the overland route. But, after interviews with the President and other officials, the President changed the plans suggested, and instructed the Sceretary of War to make out dispatches to Colonel Kearny, com- mander in the West, for the formation of a battalion of Mormons.
Colonel Kearny, who was commander of the First Dragoon Regiment, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth, selected Capt. James Allen of the same regiment to be commander of the new organization, with volunteer rank as Lieutenant- Colonel. The orders read: "You will have the Mormons distinctly understand that I wish to have them as volunteers for twelve months; that they will be marched to California, receive pay and allowances during the above time, and at its expiration they will be discharged and allowed to retain as their private prop- erty the guns and accouterments furnished them at this post."
Captain Allen proceeded at once to Mount Pisgah, a Mormon camp 130 miles east of Council Bluffs, where, on June 26, 1846, he issued a circular inviting recruits, in which was stated : "This gives an opportunity of sending a portion of your young and intelligent men to the ultimate destination of your whole people at the expense of the United States, and this advance party can thus pave the way and look out the land for their brethren to come after them." President Brigham Young of the Mormon Church and his associates gave their support. George Q. Cannon, later President of the Church, stated some secret history in years thereafter, probably on mere hearsay evidence: "Thomas H. Benton, United States Senator from the State of Missouri, got a pledge from President Polk that if the Mormons did not raise the battalion of 500, he might have the privilege of raising volunteers in the upper counties of Missouri to fall upon them and use them up."
July 16, 1845, five companies were mustered into the service of the United States at Council Bluffs, Iowa Territory. The company officers had been elected by the recruits, including Captains Jefferson Hunt, Jesse B. Hunter, James Brown and Nelson Higgins. George P. Dykes was appointed adjutant, and William McIntyre assistant surgeon. It would appear that the only practical soldier in the lot was the commanding officer.
The march westward was started July 20, the route leading through St. Joseph and Leavenworth, where were found a number of companies of Missouri volun- teers. Colonel Allen, who had secured the confidence and affection of his soldiers, had to be left, sick, at Leavenworth, where he died August 23. At Leavenworth full equipment was secured, including flintlock muskets, with a few caplock. guns for sharpshooting and hunting. Pay also was drawn, the paymaster expressing surprise at the fact that every man could write his own name, "something that only one in three of the Missouri volunteers could accomplish." August 12 and 14 two divisions of the battalion left Leavenworth, about the same time the main body of the Mormon exodus crossed the Missouri River.
The place of Colonel Allen was taken, provisionally, by First Lient. A. J.
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Smith of the First Dragoons, who proved impolitie and unpopular, animus prob- ably starting through the desire of the battalion that Captain Hunt should suc- ceed to the command. The first division of the battalion arrived at Santa Fé October 9, and was received by Colonel Doniphan, commander of the post, with a salute of 100 guns. Colonel Doniphan was an old friend. He had been a lawyer and militia commander in Clay County, Missouri, when Joseph Smith was tried by court martial at Far West in 1838, and had succeeded in changing a judgment of death passed by the mob. On the contrary, Col. Sterling Price was considered an active enemy of the Mormons.
On the arrival of the battalion in Santa Fé, Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, an officer of dragoons, succeeded to the command under appointment of General Kearny, who already had started westward. Capt. James Brown was ordered to take command of a party of about eighty men, together with about twoscore of women and children, and with them winter at Pueblo, on the headwaters of the Arkansas River.
Colonel Cooke made a rather discouraging report upon the character of the command given him for the task of marching 1,100 miles through an unknown wilderness. He said : "It was enlisted too much by families ; some were too old, some feeble, and some too young ; it was embarrassed by too many women; it was undisciplined; it was much worn by travel on foot and marching from Nanvoo, Illinois ; clothing was very scant; there was no money to pay them or clothing to issue ; their mules were utterly broken down ; the quartermaster department was without funds and its credit bad; animals scarce and inferior and deteriorating every hour for lack of forage. So every preparation must be pushed-hurried."
THE MORMON MARCH THROUGH ARIZONA
After the Mormons had sent their pay checks back to their families, the expedition started from Santa Fé 448 men strong. It had rations for only sixty days. The commander wrote on November 19 that he was determined to take along his wagons, though the mules were nearly broken down at the outset, and added a delicate criticism of General Frémont's self-centered character. "The only good mules were taken for the express for Frémont's mail, the general's order requiring the twenty-one best in Santa Fé."
Colonel Cooke soon proved an officer who would enforce strict discipline. He had secured an able quartermaster in Brevet Second Lieut. George Stoneman, First Dragoons, in later days Colonel of regulars in Arizona, and, after discharge, with the rank of General, elected to the high position of Governor of California.
Before the command got out of the Rio Grande Valley, the condition of the commissary best is to be illustrated by the following extract from verses written by Levi W. Hancock :
We sometimes now for lack of bread, Are less than quarter rations fed, And soon expect, for all of meat, Nought less than broke-down mules, to eat.
The trip over the Continental Divide was one of hardship, at places tracks for the wagons being made by marching files of men ahead to tramp down ruts wherein the wheels might run. The command for forty-eight hours at one time
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was without water. From the top of the Divide the wagons had to be taken down by hand, with men behind with ropes, and the horses driven below.
Finally a more level country was reached, on December 2, at the old, ruined ranch of San Bernardino, near the southeastern corner of the present Arizona. The principal interest of the trip, till the Mexican forces at Tucson were encoun- tered, then lay in an attack upon the marching column of a number of wild bulls in the San Pedro Valley. It had been assumed that Cooke would follow down the San Pedro to the Gila, but on learning that the better and shorter route was by Tucson, he determined upon a more southerly course.
Tucson was garrisoned by about 200 Mexican soldiers, with two small brass field pieces, a concentration of the garrisons of Tubac, Santa Cruz and Fronteras. After some brief parley, the Mexican commander, Captain Comaduron, refusing to surrender, left the village, compelling most of its inhabitants to accompany him. No resistance whatever was made. When the battalion marched in, the Colonel took pains to assure the populace that all would be treated with kindness, and sent to the Mexican commander a courteous letter for the Governor of Sonora, Don Manuel Gandara, who was reported "disgusted and disaffected to the imbecile central government." Little food was found for the men, but several thousand bushels of grain had been left and was drawn upon. On September 17, the day after the arrival of the command, the Colonel and about fifty men "passed up a creek about five miles above Tucson toward a village (San Xavier), where they had seen a large church from the hills they had passed over." The Mexican commander reported that the Americans had taken an advantage of him, in that they had entered the town on a Sunday, while he and his command and most of the inhabitants were absent at San Xavier attending mass.
The Pima villages were reached four days later, Pauline Weaver serving as a guide. By Cooke the Indians were called "friendly, guileless and singularly innocent and cheerful people."
In view of the prosperity of the Pimas and Maricopas, Colonel Cooke sng- gested that this would be a good place for the exiled Saints to locate, and a pro- posal to this effect was favorably received by the Indians. It was probable that this suggestion had much to do with the colonizing by Mormons of the upper part of the nearby Salt River valley in later years.
About January 1, to lighten the overload of the half-starved mules, a barge was made by placing two wagon bodies on dry cottonwood logs, and on this 2,500 pounds of provisions and corn were launched on the Gila River. The improvised boat found too many sandhars, and most of its cargo had to be jettisoned, lost in a time when the rations had been reduced to a few onnces a day per man. January 9 the Colorado River was reached, and the command and its impedi- menta were ferried over on the same raft contrivance that had proven ineffective on the Gila.
Colonel Cooke, in his narrative concerning the practicability of the route he had taken, said: "Undoubtedly the fine bottomland of the Colorado, if not of the Gila, will soon be settled; then all difficulty will be removed." The battalion had still more woe in its passage across the desert of southern California, where wells often had to be dug for water, and where rations were at a minimum, until Warner's Ranch was reached, where each man was given five pounds of beef a day, constituting almost the sole article of subsistence. Tyler, the Mormon histo-
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rian, insists that five pounds is really a small allowance for a healthy laboring man, because "when taken alone it is not nearly equal to mush and milk," and he referred to an issuance to each of Frémont's men of an average of ten pounds per day of fat beef.
END OF THE MARCH AND MUSTER-OUT
December 27 the long-looked-for Pacific Ocean at last appeared, in plain view, and quarters were taken up at a mission five miles from San Diego, where General Kearny was quartered.
After reporting to the General, Colonel Cooke issued an order congratulating the battalion on its safe arrival and the conclusion of a march of over 2,000 miles. "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for want of water, there is no living creature. Without a guide who had traversed them, we have ventured into trackless tablelands where water was not found for several marches. With crowbar and pick and axe in hand, we have worked our way over mountains, which seemed to defy aught save the wild goat, and hewed a passage through a chasm of living rock more narrow than our wagons. Thus, marching half naked and half fed, and living upon wild animals, we have discovered and made a road of great value to onr country. Thus, volunteers, you have exhibited some high and essential qualities of veterans."
The Mormons marched northward, and in Los Angeles had a number of personal encounters with men of Frémont's command, it being charged that Frémont himself had done all he could to arouse ill-feeling against the Mormons. Stories had spread among the Mexicans that the Mormons were cannibals, espe- cially fond of tender children. A small fort was erected commanding the town of Los Angeles, laid ont by Lieutenant Davidson of the First Dragoons, with places for six guns.
Following practical rejection by the men of an offer of reinlistment, the Mormon Battalion was discharged at Fort Moore, Los Angeles, July 15, 1849, exactly a year from the date of enlistment. The ceremony was brief. According to Tyler, the companies were formed in column and "the notorious Lieut. A. J. Smith then marched down the lines in one direction and back between the next line, and then in a low tone of voice said, 'You are discharged.' This was all there was of ceremony of mustering out of service these veteran companies of living martyrs to the cause of their country and religion."
On the 20th one company, made up from the discharged battalion, reinlisted for six months under Capt. Daniel C. Davis, to return to garrison San Diego.
In several companies, organized under captains of hundreds, fifties and tens, most of the remainder of the battalion started on foot for Salt Lake, at which point had been established the headquarters of Mormondom. There the men rejoined their families and received warm welcome as well from the leaders of the Church.
A list of the surviving members of the battalion, made by Tyler in March, 1882, included the following names, residents of Arizona at that time: Adair Wesley ; H. W. Brazee, Mesa ; George P. Dykes, Mesa; Wm. A. Follett ; Marshall
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Hunt, Snowflake; P. C. Merrill, St. David; David Pulsipher, Concho; S. II. Rogers, Snowflake; Henry Standage, Mesa; Lott Smith, Sunset.
Soon after the treaty of peace with Mexico, in the late summer of 1848, Maj. Lawrence P. Graham led a squadron of dragoons to California from Chihua- hua, marching via the old San Bernardino ranch, the Santa Cruz presidio and down the Santa Cruz to Tucson. Yuma was reached October 30. Records of this expedition especially note the drunkenness of its leader. According to John H. Slaughter, now owner of the San Bernardino ranch, an old ranch house, half a mile south of his present home and on Mexican territory, was built by this Graham party. The Agua Prieta spring passed by Colonel Cooke he believes to have been one in Anavacachi Pass, twelve miles southwest of Douglas.
CHAPTER VII EARLY MINERS AND PROSPECTORS
Spanish Silver Mines and the Planchas de Plata-American Operations Along the Border-First Copper Production at Ajo-Placers-Walker and Weaver Ex- peditions.
The history of mining in Arizona is, practically, the history of Arizona. When the Spaniards started across the deserts north of Culiacan through Pimeria and Apacheria, hunting for the Seven Cities of Cibola, they sought the spread of the Holy Faith and of the domain of their sovereign king, but their imme- diate reward was to be the gold in treasure houses, later found to be mud-built pueblos. Since that time the mountains of the Southwest have been searched most thoroughly. The Spaniard of old and his Mexican successor were the best prospectors and the closest judges of ore ever known. But, necessarily, they could mine only the richer and freer veins of the metal that they found. They hunted for gold and for silver. The latter they smelted in rude adobe furnaces, from which came, for hundreds of years, much of the wealth that sustained the then-dominant kingdom of Spain. Along the southern border of what is now Arizona, they established towns, clustered around churches, and dng in mines of wonderful richness, mines which today are known only by name, for their shafts were filled and the landmarks obliterated by an Indian uprising against the taskmasters.
From the time of the Spaniard to the time of the American miner was a long step. The first American mining followed in the pathways made by the Span- iards, along the southern border, where ore was taken out that was almost pure silver or copper and shipped by mule team to the Colorado, and thence to civ- ilization. But the latter-day miner was not content, and his scouts spread north- ward, at first along the Colorado River, and then eastwardly into the jagged mountains where the Apaches dealt death. By these pioneers were discovered the great Vulture mine and the celebrated Weaver diggings. The great Silver King in what is now the northern portion of Pinal county, was an accidental discovery, with its enormous pillar of silver, so rich that it was passed over for several years as being nothing but lead. The mines at Globe were located for silver, and there are remains still of silver mills, where veins are worked around the Miami valley, and McMillen at Pioneer and in Richmond basin.
Discovery was made of the riches of northwestern Arizona, where mines that were found more than fifty years ago still are being worked, all the way from White Hills to Signal. Around Prescott hundreds of claims were worked in the early sixties, when the miner needed a guard of riflemen as protection for his life and property against the Apache. This plnck, or foolhardiness, if you choose,
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eventually wore out the Indian and pacified Arizona, the miner possibly con- tributing to as large a degree as the soldier in making Arizona the peaceful land it now is.
THE RICH MINES OF "ARIZONA"
After the Pimeria revolt of 1751 it is doubtful if Indian labor was employed to any great extent in the mines of northern Sonora, where the number of mis- sions decreased and where the population hung close to the presidios or church enclosures that gave relative security against the Apache. This was the con- dition known as late as 1827, when a rather close inspection of the mines of northern Sonora was made by Lieut. R. W. H. Hardy of the English navy, who had little patience with the natives, or with their careless mining methods. He referred to three notable silver fields, "Creaderos de Plata," namely, Arizona, Tepustetes, and Las Cruces, near the presidio of Fronteras. Concerning the Arizona, he stated, "A great deal has been said in Mexico, and in Las Cartas de las Jesuitas is an account of a ball of silver having there been discovered by a poor man which weighed 400 arrobas-10,000 pounds! (Another account gives 149 arrobas-Editor.) It afterwards became the subject of litigation, add these learned fathers, between the discoverer and the King of Spain, which ended in His Majesty's declaring the hill where such an extraordinary treasure was found, his royal patrimony; and when Iturbide was hard pressed for money it is said that he also declared Arizona his imperial patrimony; but that his pre- mature fall prevented him from sending troops to take possession of the hill. Certain it is that in the city more is thought of the Arizona mine than is believed in Sonora." The mines had been abandoned for many years, owing to the hos- tility of the Coyotero Apaches (so-called because they were believed to feed on the flesh of the jackal), till about fifteen years before Hardy's coming, when a strong party of Mexicans, led by Manuel Morales of Arizpe and Ignacio Tiburcio de Samaniego of Bavispe, entered the forbidden country and found much more of the silver.
Hardy declared that most of the mines of Sonora had "V" veins, that diminish in width and value with depth. Also, "Some of the largest fortunes which have been gained in Sonora have arisen from the extraction of copper." Referring to the loose habits of the gold miners, who threw away their gleanings of the precious metal, Hardy in novel philosophy concluded that the mining of copper "appears to debase the mind less than gold. The same distinction I draw between copper-mine speculators and gold diggers; in the former, with tolerable care, economy and industry, success is generally the result, in Sonora at least ; in the latter enterprise much money is to be made, but it is seldom retained or used wisely or judiciously. These observations, however, have reference only to the inhabitants of Sonora, who are equally ignorant of the true value of wealth or education or liberty."
Of the mines of "Arizona," one of the most glowing accounts is that of Judge R. A. Wilson of California, who had delved rather deeply into the subject in connection with the traffic that was expected for a projected Pacific railway on the Gila route, early in the sixties, and who personally visited the northern sec- tions of Mexico. After passing through Sonora, he wrote that, "Proceeding northward, we came to a spot, the most famous in the world for its product of
H.c.g.
SMELTING FURNACES AND MULE POWER
First American reduction works in Arizona, erected at Santa Rita, January 8, 1861
THE DEAD CITY OF LA PAZ
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silver, the mine of Arazuma. For nearly a century the accounts of the wealth of this mine were considered fabulous; but their literal truth is confirmed by the testimony of the English ambassador. After examining the old records which I have quoted, I have no doubt the facts surpassed the astonishing report; for in Mexico the propensity has ever been to conceal, rather than overestimate, the quantity of silver, on account of the King's fifth, yet it is the King's fifth, actually paid, on which all the estimates of the production of Sonora silver mines are based. Arazuma, which in the report of the Minera that I have trans- lated for this volume appears to be set down as Arizpa (Arizpe?), was for a hundred years the world's wonder, and so continued until the breaking out of the great Apache war a few years afterward. Men seemed to run mad at the sight of such immense masses of virgin silver, and for a time it seemed as if silver was about to lose its value. In the midst of the excitement a royal ordinance appeared, declaring Arazuma a 'creador de plata' and appropriating it to the King's use. This put a stop to private enterprise; and after the Indian war set in Arazuma became almost a forgotten locality; and in a generation or two afterwards the accounts of the mineral riches began to be discredited."
Undoubtedly the richest of the copper mines worked in the Southwest by the Mexicans was the Santa Rita del Cobre, not far from the present Silver City. Its native copper was used by the prehistoric Indians, who, with their stone implements, pounded the soft metal into rude ornaments and small bells. It was worked by white men as early as 1804. Copper, smelted in little adobe furnaces, was sent to the Mexican mint in Chihuahua, to be stamped into coins. Some of it was delivered in the City of Mexico, though at a cost of 65 cents a pound. Later some of the bar copper was shipped to New York through the Texan port of La Vaca. The mines were abandoned in 1838, probably because the native copper no longer was found, though Cremony, whose tale on the subject is to be found elsewhere in this work, blamed the stoppage on the Apaches.
In 1851, José Antonio Acuña, a Mexican who had lived among the Apaches, returned to Sonora with a tale that somewhere near the Rio Salado there was a large deposit of pure silver, which the Indians thought merely a form of lead, and from it had moulded bullets. An organization of 500 men was effected to invade the country, but was delayed by the death of its first leader, Carrasco, whose place was taken by one Tapia. The party reached a point on the Gila River not far from where Acuña said the silver was to be found, but was met in force by the Apaches and thought it the part of discretion to retreat. Two deposits of almost pure silver thereafter were found by the Americans in the country pene- trated, in Richmond Basin near Globe and at Silver King, both points not very far from Salt River.
One of the noted mines of the Spanish era in the hills that flanked the Santa Cruz Valley was the Salero, a Spanish word meaning "saltcellar." "There are a number of stories concerning the origin of the name. Possibly that told by J. Ross Browne is as good as any. The parish priest at Tumacacori was morti- fied at a time of visitatiou by a superior priest to find that he had no saltcellar. So Indians forthwith were dispatched to the mine to dig out and smelt some silver ore. The next day at dinner a mass of silver fashioned in the shape of a salt- cellar was presented to the reverend visitor as a memento of his trip.
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