June 10 1858 April 7 1858 June 12 1858 April 5 1859 Sept. 1858 civilization paid small attention to these hardships which were endured almost without complaint. After Captain Marcy returned, the Mormon city was entered without bloodshed. During this movement of Johnston's troops, two minor laws made changes in the military establishment. The Texas border being still in an unsettled state, a new regiment of Texas mounted volunteers was allowed to be enlisted for 18 months. Because they were to furnish their own horses and horse equipments, all below the rank of major were allowed 40 cents a day extra pay. Legislation also gave the Superintendent of the Military Academy the local rank and pay of a colonel of engineers and the commandant of cadets that of lieutenant colonel. The course of instruction of the institution was changed, by order of the Secretary of War, back to five years. Not only with the Mormon expedition was the army occupied. Other regiments in isolated places were having their troubles. The Navajoes had 6 engagements with the Third Infantry. The Pacific Slope Indians were signally defeated in 3 battles near Spokane River by the Third Artillery. When an outlaw band of Cortinas attacked and blockaded Brownsville, Texas, the Third Artillery with other troops drove them off. The Sixth Infantry made a march overland from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the Pacific coast. The wide dispersion of the regiments during this decade is evidenced by the posts which the Fourth Infantry had garrisoned and in the main built. Forts Vancouver, Reading, Humboldt, Dalles, Steilacoom, Jones, Boise, Lane, Yamhill, Orford, Townshend, Hoskins, Walla Walla, Crook, Terwaw, Cascade, Simcoe, Gaston, Chehalis, Yuma and Mohave extending from British Columbia to Mexico, are forgotten names of the past. But they were in these times active and necessary havens for the settler. In occupying so wide a space activities sometimes had to go beyond national protection and become international. War was in sight with Great Britain for the fifth time in the army's history, when the Hudson Bay Company attempted to enforce its law on American citizens occupying Vancouver Island. Captain George E. Pickett was ordered with his company and one gun to occupy San Juan Island and resist the force brought 1859 to bear upon that point. When it took months to get word of the trouble to Washington and months to get back instructions, General Harney had to act on his own initiative. Accordingly July 27 he had the small contingent under Captain Pickett take up a defensive position on San Juan. Several British ships with overpowering troops and armament tried to convince Pickett of his error, but the American officer with his one gun stood his ground and stated to the ships' commander plainly that he was prepared to resist all encroachments. For some time this audacious little force of regulars held the British at bay. Finally General Scott was enabled to settle the differences by engineering a joint occupation. So closed the scene of action just before the maelstrom of the Civil War. A trained army had wrested a peace in a short time, and prevented the loss of men and money entailed by a long war. It had made possible the acquisition of a third of the present United States. It had gone further. It had made the territories capable of occupancy. It had piloted the traveler in safety, built roads, protected the mails, opened river routes, kept the savages in leash and surveyed the routes of our present railroads east and west. It had held the trail through hunger, thirst, disease, wounds, disaster, and the untold suffering that cannot be explained to one who has never experienced such things, in such places, with such scant conveniences. The march left its wolf-cleaned skeletons, the fight left its gaping arrow wounds, the suffering left its shortened lives and civilization pressed in on all sides to gloat over a rich and beautiful country. 1860 W CHAPTER VIII THE ARMY DIVIDES AND MULTIPLIES (1860-1865) AR, springing sternly from the hearts of the people, is about to rack the nation. The great uprising is first going to split the army and then swell it to puffiness. The Mexican struggle in an unknown country was quickly ended by a single chieftain, trained juniors and disciplined rank and file. The Civil War on our own soil will be dragged along by changing leaders, untrained juniors and undisciplined rank and file. The brilliant captains and lieutenants of Monterey and Cerro Gordo will be the generals of Fredericksburg and Shiloh. And they will look down helplessly over their hordes of irregulars for two years before the bullet all too sadly will have whipped those masses into shape. The long arguments over the rights of slave and free states had by the beginning of the year settled into fixed convictions. As the citizen was certain of his position, so the soldier in Fort Yuma, Arizona, knew how he stood. The slow mail from Maine or Louisiana determined his sentiments. Although he eagerly awaited the news of the bickerings that were certain to lead to strife, he went on just the same with the work in hand. Out of 198 companies in the service 183 were strewn over 79 posts of the wild frontier. The other 15 manned the Atlantic coast, 23 arsenals, and the Canadian border. Seldom was so much as a battalion collected in any one place and often a small company was separated into detachments. Less than 13,000 men attempted to hold in security 3,000,000 square miles of territory. In these ominous hours only one great hand was raised to increase our resistance. Scott proposed the establishment of a sufficient force of regulars against possible trouble. But among the politicians in Washington, his was a voice crying in the wilderness. With Buchanan and Floyd there was not a chance of conviction that widespread training and discipline would save lives. Besides their apparent sympathies with the South, they looked upon Scott as too old to lead troops and therefore too old to give advice. All this time the two sides to the issue were sedulously hurling burning brands at each other when there was no fire department to quench the flames. A hose in Oregon, a nozzle in Florida, horses in Texas and an engine nowhere! The army was fighting Indians while the factions were wrangling. Fighting Indians! Hunting wolves while the mother country lay in convulsions! 1860 The First Infantry was in Texas, the Second along the Jan. Mississippi River as far west as For Kearny, the Third in New Mexico, the Fourth on the Pacific coast from Puget Sound to the Gulf of California, the Fifth in the Mormon country of Utah, the Sixth in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona, the Seventh in Utah, the Eighth in Texas, the Ninth in Oregon and the Tenth in Utah and New Mexico. The First Artillery was in the Gulf States, the Second along the Atlantic coast, the Third in the vicinity of Vancouver Barracks, Washington Territory, and the Fourth in Utah. The First and Second Dragoons were scattered over the west; the Third was mainly concentrated in New Mexico and the Fourth at Fort Riley, Kansas. Small disturbances were continually prevalent throughout most of the vast territory the army attempted to cover. For example, in New Mexico near Fort Defiance where the Navahos and Apaches were actively hostile, the soldier's life was far from peaceful. Nestled in the mountains at the foot of Cañon Bonita, scarcely 200 men occupied the loneliest corner of the United States and the key to the Rio Grande. It was called a fort but it was not a fortress. The parade ground, quarters, barracks, prison, storehouses and adobe shacks lay out in the open, protected only by the alertness and man power of the few occupants. Early in the year 5 companies of the Third Infan- Jan. 17 try had driven off a band of savages whom they had chased to Sixteen Mile Pond and beaten. And later a small company was 1860 1860 Feb. 8 April 30 1860 June 2 1860 June 21 1860 successful in putting to flight other harassing Indians. For over a month thereafter the little garrison had lived in comparative comfort. But one night Lieutenant Whipple, who was officer of the day, had suspicions, from those intangible reckonings that come to men experienced in Indian treachery, that there was going to be an attack. Visiting each sentry he saw that the guard was properly instructed and vigilant. Sure enough, at one in the morning just after the moon had set, the war whoop sounded from the opposite hills and 3,000 Navahos and Apaches swooped down upon the 150, most of whom were asleep. But the guard was awake and watchful. Giving the alarm it placed itself where it would be the greatest hindrance. The delay was enough to allow the rudely awakened officers and soldiers to grab enough clothing to cover them, to assemble in orderly formation as if they were on parade and to sally forth. Forming a skirmish line they fired by file at any moving object they could see. Stumbling in the darkness they even charged some savages who were strongly posted in natural stone battlements. When dawn came, the Indians moved off with many of their numbers dead and wounded. The superior discipline and marksmanship of the trained soldier had told. One man killed and a few wounded was the tally of the little post of Fort Defiance. And affairs there went on peacefully for some time, but the size of the post was always an invitation to the painted warriors. Troops in other wild sections were playing their part with equal grit and endurance. When some prospectors were massacred in Nevada, parts of the Sixth Infantry and Third Artillery sought out the plundering tribes. At Truckee River, these troops routed the Indians after a severe fight. Some of the Tenth Infantry in New Mexico, of the Sixth at Mad River, California, and of the Third Artillery at Harney Lake and in the Klamath country of Washington Territory had sharp encounters with the savages of those localities, while the Fourth Artillery, operating as cavalry, kept the roads and mail routes open and escorted emigrants over hundreds of miles of barren country in Utah. The only legislation for the army this year was an act which among other similar things increased the sugar and coffee |