Bugler, Sound The Charge

Muster Rolls 1834-1859

Will Gorenfeld — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:57:49 +0000

Muster Roll for Company I, 30 April 1835

Camp Des Moines, Iowa Territory

Officers

Capt. Jesse Browne, present, sick.

1^st Lt. Abraham Van Buren, absent, ADC to Gen. in Chief.

2^nd Albert M. Lea, present, commanding company.

Non Commissioned Officers When Recruited Where

J.C. Parrot, 1^st Sgt. Feb 10, 1834 They Wheeling, Va.

B.F. Price Sgt. “ 8, “ Parkersburg, “

Styles, L.A. “ “ 10, Wheeling, “

Heishberger, H.R., “ “ 11, 1835 Carlisle, Pa.

Burtlett, S.M. Corp. Jan. 30, 1834 Parkersburg, Va.

Barnett, R., “ Apr. 4, “ Lancaster, Pa.

Wilson, C.C. “ Mar. 11, “ Wheeling, Va,

Haber, B.M. “ Feb. 5, “ “ “

Deem, J. Bugler “ 3, 1835 Reading, Pa.

Deem, R., “ 5, “ “ “

Ambold, F. Farrier Jan 30, “ Harrisburg, “

Privates

Britte, Jacob March 13, 1834 Wheeling, Va.

Browne, Geo. S. “ 12, “ “ “

Brown. A.C. Feb. 27, “ Parkersburg, “

Bishop, Benj. “ 20, “ Carlisle, Pa.

Cornoy, Wm. “ 9 “ “ “

Chapman, A. “ 18 “ “ “

Deem, Daniel Feb. 3, 1835 Reading, Pa.

Dennis, James “ 13, “ Carthage, New York

Eastman, John March 31, 1834 Portsmouth, Pa.

Foley, Jas. A. Feb. 8, “ Parkersburg, Va.

Farmer, John March 18, 1835 Carisle, Pa.

Gaston, Chas. W. Feb. 17, 1834 Clarksburg, Pa.

Herr, Henry “ 12, “ Wheeling, Va.

Holladay, A.G. April 16, 1834 Chilicotthe, Va.

Heermance, Ed March 12, 1835 Carisle, Pa.

Hoffman, John Feb. 9, “ Reading, Pa.

Kent, William Jan. 30, “ Harrisburg, Pa.

Lockard, A.M. March 5 “ Carlisle, Pa.

Magonan, James Jan. 30, 1834 Parkersburg, Pa.

Miller, O.H.P. Feb. 11, “ Wheeling, Va.

Mitchell, C.S. “ 19, “ Clarksburg, Pa.

Mitchell, Robert Jan. 27, 1835 Harrisburg, Pa.

Morrison, Daniel Feb. 11, “ Carlisle, Pa.

McDonough, Jos. Mar. 4, “ “ “

McKinley, Alex “ 15, 1834 Parkersburg, Pa.

McCleary, Wm. Feb. 4, 1835 Harrisburg, Pa.

Mc Farland, Gil. Mar, 27, 1834 Zanesville, Oh.

Neely, John Feb. 18, “ Clarksburg, Pa.

Norton, Abel April 16, “ Chillicote, Va.

Pennington, Jos. “ 12, “ Baltimore, Md.

Piper, Conrad March 7, 1835 Carlisle, Pa.

Platte, John Feb. 18, “ “

Robinson, John “ 17, 1834 Parkersburg, Va.

Rubble, Geo. W. February 8, 1834 Parkersburg, Va.

Strait, J.B. “ 20, “ “

Smith, John “ 3, 1835 Clarksburg, Pa.

Shelton, Jacob “ 6, “ Harrisburg, Pa.

Shoemaker, A.W. “ 8, “ Reading, Pa.

Sheffer, William “ 4, “ Harrisburg, Pa.

Trowbridge, Levi “ 7, 1834 Parkersburg, Va.

Willey, Henry April 11, “ Baltimore, Md.

Wolf, John February 11, 1835 Carlisle, Pa.

Worth, Henry “ 9, “ “

Wynkoop, Isaac “ “ “

Young, William Jan. 31, “ Harrisburg, Pa.

Muster Roll Company C, October 31, 1846

Captain Benjamin Moore, commanding *

Lieutenant Andrew J. Smith

Lieutenant Joseph McElvain

Bvt. Lt. John Adams

Sergeant R.T. Falls January 1, 1844, Weston, Mo. (re-enlisted) Great coat $4.75.

Sergeant Richard Williams May 24, 1846, St Joseph, Mo.

Sergeant John O’Brien December 15, 1845, Weston, Mo. Pistol $8.00, Boots $1.22

Sergeant John Cox * May 24, 1846, Leavenworth (re-enlisted) Promoted sergeant, July 1, 1846.

Corporal Paul Woods September 24, 1844, Weston, Mo.

Corporal John Cassin July 19,1846, Leavenworth (re-enlisted) surcingle $.73.

Corporal Edward Heinrich July 28, 1843, Ft. Scott, Mo. (re-enlisted)

Corporal Oliver Wilson November 4, 1845, Leavenworth (re-enlisted)

Daily duty in charge of Howitzer; 2 pr. Socks $.49.

Bugler Michael Halpin October 7, 1843, Leavenworth (re-enlisted) due sutler $8.00

Bugler James McKee December 8, 1845, Leavenworth (re-enlisted) Daily duty escort to Kearny.

Farrier John Roady January 19, 1846, Dayton, Ohio, appointed farrier August 1, 1846.

George Ashmead * October 1, 1845, Leavenworth (re-enlisted) Flannel shirt $.49, greatcoat $4.95.

Stephen Bishop May 20, 1844, Leavenworth (re-enlisted)

George Bryan October 7, 1844, St, Louis, Mo. Headstall $.55.

Zarah Bobo January 14, 1846, Dayton, Ohio. Flannel shirt $.49.

John Brown January 24, 1846, Dayton, Ohio. Gen’l court martial suspension of half-month’s pay for 12 months. (Wounded at San Pasqual.)

George Casselt February 10, 1846, Leavenworth (re-enlistment).

Edward Cumen October 14, 1845, Leavenworth (re-enlistment) Flannel shirt $.49, socks $.49,carbine sling swivel $.75.
Mark Childs June 27, 1844, St. Louis, Mo. Screw driver $.24, cartridge box plate $.10, carbine sling swiverl $1.50.

Joseph Campbell * February 14, 1846, St. Louis, Mo.

Jeremy Crab January 20, 1846, Dayton, Ohio. Wool jacket $4.19. (Wounded at San Pasqual.)

Caroloust Callahan July 26, 1844, Louisville, Ky.

John Douglass May 7, 1846, Leavenworth

John Dunlap * August 10, 1845, Ft. Washita, IT, re-enlistment. Pistol $8.00.

A.C. Donaldson December 17, 1845, Wheeling, W. Va.

William Dalton * June 18, 1844, Louisville, Ky. Pistol $8.00 (in confinement)

Peter Forney December 14, 1843, Weston, Mo.

Erasmus French January 3, 1846, Dayton, Ohio. Fatigue frock $.61, flannel shirt $.61 (hospital stewart). Deserted, Los Angeles, September 25, 1848.

Thomas Grady January 26, 1846, Leavenworth (re-enlisted). Sling & swivel $1.50, sabre $2.50, 2 cotton shirts $.86. Daily duty Howitzer.

John Henerle April 2, 1846, St. Louis, Mo. Sling & swivel $1.50.

Joseph Kennedy * July 15, 1844, Louisville, Ky. Daily duty escort Kearny.

Matthew Louber July 10, 1845, St. Louis, Mo.

William Lecke* January 6, 1845, Dayton, Ohio. Fatigue cap $.95.5, cotton jacket $.72.

Jacob Mauser May 7, 1846, Leavenworth (re-enlisted). Daily duty Howitzer.

John McNeilly May 3, 1846, St. Louis, Mo. Wool overalls $3.36, flannel shirt $.90, fatrigue frock $.61. (Wounded Jan. 6, 1847.)

James Murphy December 24, 1845, Dayton, Ohio. $9.00 due to court martials of May 22 and August 28, 1846. Wool jacket $4.19.

George Myers December 29, 1845, Dayton, Ohio. Fatigue frock $.61.

John Murtry July 23, 1844, Louisville, Ky. Resigned.

Ferdinand Nichols June 27, 1846, St. Louis, Mo. Extra duty under Quartermaster.

John Osborne July 30, 1844, Louisville, Ky. Reins $.40, snaffle bit $.62, 2 cotton shirts $.86.

George Pearce July 1, 1844, Louisville, Ky. Company letter $.05. Daily duty escort Kearny.

Henry Purcell January 16, 1846, St. Louis, Mo. Sabre $4.50, belt $1.50, cartridge box $1.10, wool jacket $4.19, flannel shirt $.90.

Amasa Palmer Jan. 15, 1846, Dayton, Ohio.

James Pinkerton January 9, 1846, Dayton, Ohio. Cartridge box and plate $1.10. Daily duty Howitzer.

Isaac Randolph August 29, 1844, Jefferson Barracks. Pistol $8.00, fatigue shirt $.90, 2 pair socks $.49.

Samuel Repose * December 10, 1845, Dayton, Ohio. Wool jacket $4.19.

James Reppeto October 30, 1845, Dayton, Ohio. Fatigue cap $.95, wool jacket $4.19, cotton jacket $.72, cotton frock $.61.

John Stokely February 2, 1846, Dayton, Ohio. Sling swivel $1.50.

Michael Tubb July 19, 1844, St. Louis, Mo. Daily duty escort Kearny.

William Tubb January 16, 1846, (re-enlisted) St. Louis, Mo. Daily duty escort Kearny.

Christian Teinchand May 5, 1843, Dayton, Ohio. 2 shirts $.86.

Paul Vanaken December 13, 1843, St. Louis, Mo. Boots $1.22.

John Vyzer November 1844, Dayton, Ohio. Ramrod $.59; fatigue cap $.95; wool jacket $4.19; wool overalls $3.56; sling & swivel $1.50; cotton jacket $2.00; cotton overalls $.98, ramrod $.59

George Williams August 20 1845, Leavenworth (re-enlisted). Wool overalls $3.36; belt plate $.10; socks $.49

Jacob Westfall December 22, 1845, St. Louis, Mo. Cotton overalls $.98

William West* August 3, 1844, Leavenworth (re-enlisted). Flannel shirt $.90

John White February 6, 1846, Dayton, Ohio. Daily duty driving howitzer.

Harry Walker May 26, 1842, Leavenworth (re-enlisted). Left sick at Leavenworth

Died, Battle of San Pasqual

German born soldiers with Company B, 1^st Dragoons 1847, Lt. John Love commanding. This information was gleaned from the muster roll and recruitment records for Company B of the 1st Dragoons. At the time this company left Ft. Leavenworth for Santa Fe in June of 1847, over one-quarter of its privates were of German extraction.
1st Sgt. Frederick Muller 15 Apr. 1844, St. Louis, Mo., Prussia, Promoted Ordnance    Sergeant and died at Fort Wood, NY Harbor, 1860.
John Baker 29 April 1845 St. Louis, Mo. Prussia, Fireman Discharged due to Disability, Chihuahua, Mexico 27 Apr. 1848
Henry Heineke 16 Feb. 1847 St. Louis, Mo.; Wounded at Battle of Rosales, 16 Mar.,    1848, Discharged due to Disability Chihuahua, Mexico, 15 May, 1848: Civil        War service: Lt., 14th Illinois Cavalry
Joseph Hoerner 29 Dec. 1846, St. Louis, Mo.; left sick at Santa Fe, 10 Feb. 1848
Phillip Joost 4 Jan. 1847, St. Louis, Mo. Germany; Signmaker Deserted Ft.         Leavenworth, 4 June 1847
Joseph Kieffer 23 Dec. 1846 St. Louis. Mo. Germany Laborer Discharged Disability
19 March 1850, Taos, NM
Hy Kroaus (Kraus?) 27 Dec. 1846 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Tailor Discharged due to Disability, 24 Aug. 1848, Santa Fe, NM
Edward Langerwelsh 13 Jan. 1847 Jefferson Bks Germany Laborer 19 Aug. 1848,   Santa Fe, NM
Conrad Leffler 16 Feb. 1847 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Laborer Discharged Disability
28 Dec. 1848, Alburqueque, NM
Frederick Lohrmeyer 19 Apr. 1847 St. L. Mo. Germany; Laborer; Dicharged 19 Aug 1848; re-enlisted 1 Dec. 1855 Alburqueque, NM
George Meyers, St. Louis, Mo. Feb. 25, 1847 Wounded at Rosales 16 Mar. 1848 (lost             right arm); left sick Santa Cruz de Rosales (18 Mar. 1848)
Peter Mokenhanbt 3 March 1845 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Laborer Deserted 28 May             1848; captured.
25 Nov. 1846.; Detached Duty as officer’s servant Feb-Apr. 1848; Discharged end of            service 3 March 1850

John Mokenhanbt 21 Jan. 1845 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Laborer Deserted 4 May       1846, captured 25 Nov. 1846. Discharged end of service 1850
Jno Racener 9 Feb. 1847 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Farmer Discharged 9 Aug. 1848      Santa Fe.
Jno Scott (Schott?) 9 Jan. 1847 St. Louis, Mo Germany Painter Discharged 9 Aug.       1848 Santa Fe
Frederick Sick 28 June 1846, Ft. Scott Germany Soldier 2d Enlistment. Discharged
Disability 24 Aug. 1848 Santa Fe, NM
John Stein 14 January 1847 St. Louis, Mo. Germany; Wheelwright; Deserted Ft.         Leavenworth, 7 June 1847; captured 21 Dec.1847; Discharged General Ct.
Martial 16 Jan. 1848

Edward Schobe 24 Apr. 1847 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Clerk Discharged 19 Aug. 1848 Santa Fe,

Jno Shobe 9 Jan. 1847, St. Louis, Mo. Germany, painter; Discharged Santa Fe, 19 Aug.            1848
Herman Sigler 11 Apr. 1846 St. Louis, Mo Discharged 11 April 1850 Taos
George Sigler 11 Apr. 1846 St. Louis, Mo. Dischgd 11 Apr. 1850, Taos
Wm Strobe 10 Dec. 1846 Jefferson Barracks Hanover Laborer, Discharged at            Sonoma Barracks California, 10 Dec. 1851
Geo. Stremmle 5 Dec. 1846 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Locksmith Discharged 5 Dec.        1851 Ft., Leavenworth; end of service
Peter Trimborn 22 Jan. 1847 St. Louis, Mo Germany Carpenter Dischgd 19 Aug.        1848, Santa Fe; Civil War service: pvt. West Missori Volunteers.
Henry Vankaster 24 Mar. 1847 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Farmer; Severely wounded in           battle with Commanche; 26 June 1847; Discharged Disability 19 Aug. 1847        Santa Fe
Jno Wedeg 15 Feb. 1847 St. Louis, Mo. Germany Laborer Discharged Disability 15    Feb. 1848, Chihuahua, Mexico
Henry White 23 Mar. 1847 Jefferson Bks. Germany Farmer Discharged 19 Aug, 1858          Santa Fe

Muster Roll of Company F of the First Dragoons, Mexico City, October 31, 1847
Capt. Philip Kearny, Jr.    Sick
1st Lt. A. Buford                 Absent. Never Joined. Place and duty not known.
1st Lt. Richard Ewell         Commanding Company.
2d Lt. Oren Chapman       Joined from duty 2d Drags. 5 Sept.
1st Sgt. David Reed            9 Jan. 46, Ft. Leavenworth
Sgt. Henry Hence         23 Nov. 46, Sick
Sgt. Fleming Megan       8 Aug. 46, Terre Haute    Sick, Pueblo, Mexico, since 8 Aug.
Corp. James Clark          7 Sept. 46, St Louis
Corp. John Perkins        8 Aug. 46, Shelbyville
Corp. Wm Anderson    28 Aug. 46, St Louis
Bugler Joe Hodgson     25 Sept. 47, Joined City of Mexico
Farrier George Thompson 12 Jan. 44, Ft. Scott, $2.00 stoppage garrison ct martial
Daniel Alaways              21 Aug 46, Chilicotte
John Alaways                   “     “    “               “                Sick, Pueblo, Mexico, since 8 Aug.
Joseph Aleut                  21 July 46. St Louis
John Askins                     8 Aug. 46, Shelbyville     Detached service, since 31 Oct.
Allen Bullard                  13 Aug. 46, Terre Harte
Michael Brophy    20 Apr. 46, Rayado,     joined company prisoner exch. Sept. 3
Thomas Bryant             5 Aug 46, St Louis,     Sick, Pueblo, Mexico since 8 Aug.
Morris Kane                  18 Sept. 46, “ ”
Hugh Call                       16 Oct. 46, near St Louis
Peter Christman          6 Dec. 43, St Louis,     Sick; stoppage for wool infy coat, $2.28
Alonzo Clark              16 May 47, Jalapa, Mexico,     joined during march.
James Curley              18 July, 46, St Louis
Eleazor Dort                10 Aug. 46, Terre Haute
William Donovan       29 Aug., St Louis                           Daily duty
David Dunton           9 Dec. 46, Saltillo, Mex.                 Daily Duty
Samuel Flint             14 July, 46, Chilicotte
Philip Frankenberg 6 Aug. 46, Ft. Leavenworth            Sick, Puebla, Mex., since 8 Aug.
Charles Graman       10 Aug. 46, Terre Haute            Sick
David Giesler               21 July 46, Chillicothe
Andrew Gillespie   26    ”    ” ”
James Grace                16 June 46, Ft. Leavenworth
Jacob Grant                  5 July 46, Jefferson Barracks       Sick Puebla, Mex. Since 25 May
Augustus Gruber       6 July 46, Fort Leavenworth           Sick, Puebla, Mex., since 8 Aug.
Thomas Hall                5 July 46, Jefferson Barracks       Sgt. until 29 October.
John Harper               28 July 46, Chillicote                        Stoppage pistol $7.50.
Patrick Hart               4 August 46, St Louis; Joined Tabacayo 5 Sept. prisoner exch.
Michael Henry         12 Sept. 46, Philadelphia; Joined from desertion 16 Feb 47.
Thomas Hewitt       27 Aug. 46, Terre Haute                    Sick, Puebla, Mex., since 8 Aug.
Henry Hoffman       14 Jan. 46, Dayton                  Sick
Martin Howard       11 Aug. 46, Terre Haute                   Sick, Puebla, Mex., since 8 Aug.
John Howell                6 Feb. 46, Ft. Leavenworth; Stoppage flannel shirt and pistol
William Jeffers         19 Oct. 46, New Orleans
John Kaler                   4 June 46, St. Louis
John Keckler             17 Aug. 46, Chillicote
Levi Kimball               1 June 46, Sackett’s Harbor       Detached Service since 31st Oct.
Antone Lange              14 Aug. 46, StLouis                   Daily duty.
William Martin          8 Aug. 46, Terre Haute
Persaruis Maypelle 25 July 46, St. Louis
John Moore               10 Aug, 46, Terre Haute
Wm McAllister          17 Aug. 46, Covington, Ind. Stoppage for 1 blanket $2.22.
Wm McCrea               19 Aug. 46, Roseau, Ind.         Daily duty.
John McDonald        19 Aug. 46, Chillicote   Stoppage for pistol $7.50.
Anthony Pulver   7 Dec. 46, Corpus Christi; Detached service since 31 October.
Charles Prother         10 Aug. 46, Terre Haute
Christian Ranner      10 Aug. 46, Terre Haute
John Roberts       1 April 47. Vera Cruz    Sick at Puebla since 8 August.
Frederick Rodewald 16 Aug 46, St Louis                   Sick at Puebla since 8 August.
William See                15 Aug. 46, Terre Haute    Detached service since 31 Oct.
John Smith                 10 Aug. 46,   “         ”
John W Smith           “     “       “     “          “                  Stoppage flannel shirt $1.30.
Robert Stewart          8    “       “     “          ”
James H Stevens         1 Apr. 46, Vera Cruz.
Daniel Suter                 6 Aug. 46, Ft. Leavenworth; Daily duty.
Clinton Thompson     14 Aug. 46, Terre Haute              Sick at Puebla since 8 August.
Harvey Thompson      4 Aug. 46, Shelbyville; Daily duty.
James Thompson    8 Aug. 46,         “                      Sick at Puebla since 8 August.
John Walkes                 24 Aug. 46, St. Louis; Sick
Joseph Westgenes       17 Aug. 46, “      “          “   ; Sick, Puebla since 8 August.
Robert Whitener         27 Jan. 41, Ft. Crawford; Sick Perote, since 25 May.
Andrew Whitley      31 July 46, Geldon, Ind.
William Wilson           25 Sept. 46, Jefferson Bks.
Robert Wright 8 Aug. 46, Terre Haute.

Muster Roll for Companies F and I, April 30, 1854

Captain William Grier, on leave
1st Lt. John W. Davidson, commanding, slightly wounded Cieneguilla

Non-Commissioned Officers

James Batty 1st Sgt. (promoted 1 April 1854) 9 January 1850, Taos, New Mexico
Terr. (See Below.)
Augustus O’Hook Commissary Sgt. 1 August 1851, Rayado, New Mexico, Territory
Benjamin Dempsey Sgt. April 2, 1850, Utica (wounded Cieneguilla 30 March 1854; promoted 1 April 1854.)
Richard Byrnes Sgt. (promoted 1 April 1854) June 12, 1850 NY; wounded Cieneguilla (sgt. major of 1st Cavalry 1856-61; 1st lieutenant 17th Infantry, May 14, 1861; transferred to 5th Cavalry Sept. 21, 1861; Col. 28th Massachusetts Infantry 18 October 1862; died of wounds received at Cold Harbor 3 June 1864; see Lowe, Five Years a Dragoon (U. Okla 1965), 20-21.
William Gorman, Corp., March 20, 1851
Leonard Beckwith Corp. April 22, 1850, Utica
James W. Strowbridge, Corp. (appointed 1 April 1854) from Burlington Vermont, a bricklayer, August 27, 1853, Burgwin, aged 26 years, blue eyes, brown hair, floid complexion and standing 5? 8?; re-enlisted 18 July 1858 at Ft Tejon in Company B; deserted 7 October 1859.
Benjamin Fricke Bugler November 24, 1849, Philadelphia
Henry McGrath Bugler May 18, 1850, Phila. (slightly wounded Cieneguilla)
Byars Jenkins Farrier (appointed 1 April 1854; slightly wounded Cieneguilla)
May 6, 1850 Boston

Privates

John H. Arest March 10, 1852, Cantonment Burgwin
Joseph Baitsell March 20, 1850, Philadelphia (wounded Cieneguilla)
Patrick Boyle February 1, 1851, Rochester (Musketoon $11.00; Colt revolver
$25.00; pistol flask $1.00) in confinement
James Bronson November 22, 1849 Rochester (severely wounded Cieneguilla) aka
James Bennett, 1849 (deserted from B company in March of 1856; studied
medicine and became assistant surgeon 6th and 13th NY Heavy
Artillery during Civil War; died 14 Jan. 1909 in Plattsburg, NY).
Ralph Burnham April 7, 1853, Baltimore (extra clothing $12.60)
Herman Clark March 27, 1851 Baltimore
William F. Coder May 3, 1853 Philadelphia (DD hospital)
Charles Crout January 22, 1851 Baltimore (severely bruised Cieneguilla)
Owen Curtis February 18, 1851 Boston (slightly wounded Cieneguilla)
Francis Daykin March 27, 1851, Baltimore (sick)
Joseph Dowd April 1, 1850, Utica (slightly wounded Cieneguilla)
Geroge Erskine November 12, 1849, Philadelphia
Robert Evans, January 3, 1853
William Fullerton, March 5, 1851, Boston
Henry Griffiths July 1, 1851, Rayado
Robert Haight November 20, 1850, Rochester
Samuel Haines May 24, 1850, Philadelphia (hospital attendant)
George Howlett August 3, 1849, Taos (hospital attendant)
Jno F. Hutchinson 1 November 1851, Ft. Union, a bookbinder by trade, 3 July 1854, obtained writ of habeas corpus from the territorial court releasing him from service on ground that he had be illegally enlisted due to his being married at time of enlistment. Previous service with Co. E, 7th Inf. discharged 15 December 1849.
Michael Lawless December 4, 1849, Boston
Bradford Lewis September 6, 1850, Rochester
Edward Maher January 21, 1851, Boston
James Mason December 3, 1849, Philadelphia
Frederick Miller February 26, 1850, Philadelphia (severely wounded Cieneguilla)
Henry Miller December 28, 1852, Philadelphia (severely wounded Cineguilla
DD teamster)
Ferd. Newhand March 26, 1851, Baltimore (DD teamster)
Richard Oliver October 21, 1852, New York
Jacob Plethe May 18, 1849, Philadelphia
Jamers Powell March 26, 1851, Baltimore (DD carpenter)
John Shea February 27, 1851, Boston
Shirer, George March 24, 1850, Boston (extra clothing $3.53)
Sam Sommerville March 1, 1851, Philadelphia (slightly wounded Cieneguilla)
Hiram Stevens March 5, 1851, Boston
Peter Sullivan January 7, 1850, NY (wounded Cien. and later died of wounds)
Robert Wert March 14, 1850, NY (extra clothing $.66)
David Wallace March 20, 1850, Philadelphia (extra clothering $5.70)
Horatio W. Weed February 1, 1854, Burgwin
Peter Weldon March 3, 1851, Philadelphia (wounded Cieneguilla)
John Wilson November 3, 1852, Baltimore

KIA

1st Sgt. Wm Holbrook July 1, 1853, Burgwin
Sgt. Wm Kent July 19, 1851, Burgwin
Farrier Reuben Snell March 25, 1851, Philadelphia ($208.37½ found on body)
John Bradley December 14, 1852, NY
Augustus Brenker March 31, 1851, Philadelphia
John Dale March 19, 1851, Baltimore
Wm Driscole June 22, 1851, Boston
Thomas Gibbins April 15, 1850, Baltimore
Louis Humbert December 2, 1850, NY
William Null March 31, Philadelphia (extra clothing $6.07)
Reuben Pease March 21, 1850, Utica
Gordon R. Rennie March 26, 1849, Baltimore
Charles F. Rottger February 15, 1851, NY
Ryan

1st Sgt. John Batty enlisted in the Dragoons in 1840. While in his fifth tour of duty, as his company prepared to march East to fight in the Civil War, this veteran of 21 years of hard service died of a in Los Angeles in August of 1861.

MUSTER ROLL Troop F April 30, 1854 (Note that F Company detachment of 15 men suffered 100% casualties at Cieneguilla.)

Bvt. Major and Captain Philip H. Thompson, commanding

Non Commissioned Officers

1st Sgt. Thomas Fitzsimmons 20 January 1851, NY
Sgt. C. Frank Clarke (former sgt. major; born in Suffolk County, England; enlisted 1 October 1849, Jefferson Barracks; was on detached service carrying dispatches from Santa Fe at time of battle; discharged 1 October 1854; later captain, company I, 6th Kansas Mounted Volunteers, died 10 December 1862, Memphis Tennessee.)
Sgt. John Horan 1 November 1849, Boston
Sgt. John Cameron 22 October 1849, NY (in arrest; discharged 22 October 1854)
Corp. Jno K. Davis 23 November 1850, Boston (slightly wounded
Cieneguilla) (re-enlisted)
Corp. Hugh Cameron 4 Mar 1851, NY
Corp. Francis Arthur 20 August 1853, Ft. Massachusetts (horse blanket
$2.50)
Corp. Charles H. Hanish 21 August 1853, Ft. Massachusetts
Bugler James Clark 17 March 1853, Philadelphia
Farrier Edward O’Meara 17 February 1851, Buffalo

Privates

Robert W. Allen 20 March, 1851, Las Vegas, NM (3d enlistment)
John Armstrong 20 May 1852, Baltimore (in confinement Burguin; discharged 4 October 1854)
Jerome Bates 27 October 1849, Boston (sick wounded
Cieneguilla)(re-enlisted)
James Buck 27 March 1851, Las Vegas (sick severely wounded
Cieneguilla)(re-enlisted)
Neil Brewer 15 October 1852, Ft. Massassusetts (spurs & straps $1.10)
Augustus Bradley 12 March 1853, Philadelphia (spurs and strap $1.10; deserted 1 October 1854)
Louis Crosbie 15 September 1849 NY
William Carroll 18 March 1851, Philadelphia (spurs and straps $1.10)
John Cooper 28 March 1851, Taos (re-enlisted)
William Cassidy 9 February 1852, Taos (re-enlisted)
George W. Davis 15 December 1851, Las Vegas
Benjamin Engle 8 November 1849, Rochester
Theodore Fricke 27 January 1851, Las Vegas (re-enlisted)
Michael Flood 15 March 1851, NY (severely wounded Cieneguilla)
Joseph Fox 26 April 1852, Baltimore (sick)
Jacob Fullmer 17 March 1851, Phila (in confinement, Jefferson Bks; dropped from the rolls on 19 December 1854 “in consequence of his being a felon & not having heard of him since June of 1853.”
John Garrett 8 November 1849, Baltimore
Willaim Grieseman 7 October 1852, Galisto, NM (re-enlisted)
John Harper 7 October 1851, Las Vegas (re-enlisted)
William Gray 12 October 1852, Galisto (re-enlisted)
Henry Jacobs 27 February 1851, Baltimore (held under charges)
Joseph Johnson 22 May 1852, Columbus (Lt. Love)
Henry Kirchner 1 March 1852, NY
John Keebler 2 February 1852, Ft. Leavenworth (Revolver $25.00)
Augustus Kraus 21 April 1852, NY
Daniel McFarlan 17 April 1852 NY
Thomas Meecham 20 October 1852, Philadelphia
Jeremiah Mahoney 19 January 1851, Boston (severely wounded Cieneguilla)
Patrick Madden 20 May 1852, Baltimore
Benjamin Platiner 1 March 1853, Philadelphia
Aaron D. Stevens 1 April 1851, NY
Jeremiah Sullivan 20 November 1852 NY (severely wounded Cieneguilla;
prisoner under charges)
Jim Vanderlen 23 Nov. 1849, Ft Smith (Colt Revolver $25.00 teamster)
Philip Welsh 21 February 1852, Alburqueque (old soldier bounty)
Robert Walsh 26 March 1851, Las Vegas (old soldier bounty)
Frank Winder 25 February 1851, Baltimore (slightly wounded
Cieneguilla)
George Winache 1 November 1849, Ft, Scott
Aaron Williams 26 November, 1853, Taos

KIA

Thomas Awant 14 March 1853 NY
Martin Bowditch 11 March 1849, Boston
Geo. W. Brieswood 25 February 1852, Baltimore
William Fell, 18 Feb 1853, Philadelphia (wounded Cieneguilla, died 6 April 1854)
Willaim Mitchell 18 February 1853, Philadelphia
Thomas Higgins 14 Dec. 1852 NY
Henry Kimble 19 February 1851, NY
Alexander McDonald 23 October 1849, NY
Anton Schmontz 25 February 1851 Baltimore

Discharged Disability

Charles Hopping 6 May 1852, Ft. Union

Desertion

Bugler James Cook 20 March 1849, Baltimore (deserted April 5, 1854; horse, blanket,
equipage, Sharps, sabre and belt, cartridge box)
Pvt. Joseph Branson 12 February 1852, Gallisto, NM (re-enlisted) (deserted April 5, 1854,
Musketoon, Grimsley saddle, cartridge box and sabre belt)
Patrick McConnel 22 June 1852, Baltimore (deserted April 5, 1854, horse and
equipage, sling and swivel, Mississippi Rifle, flask, sabre.)
James Moss 18 January 1853, Philadelphia (deserted April 17th 1854, horse
and equipage, Colt revolver, pommel holster, cartridge box
Musketoon, sling & swivel.)

Muster Roll Company F, 30 April 1855

1st Sgt. Thomas Fitzsimmons, NY 20 Jan. 1851; Reduced to the ranks and transferred to Co. K
Sgt. Hugh Cameron, NY 4 Mar. 1851, Burgwin, re-enlisted
Sgt. James Arthur, Oct. 22, 1848, Jefferson Barracks; Ft. Mass. 20 Aug. 1853; Re-enlisted; reduced to the ranks; sent to G Compy.
Sgt. Charles Hamish, Ft. Mass. 21 Aug. 1853 Re-enlisted
Corp. Robert Walsh, Las Vegas 26 Mar. 1851 Re-enlisted
Corp. John Weldon, Burgwin 22 Sept 1854 Re-enlisted
Corp. James, Vanderlen NY 5 Mar 1851 Appointed Mar. 5, 1855
Corp. Hugh May, Albuquerque 5 May 1852 Appointed Mar 7 1855
Bugler Aaron Stevens, * NY 1 Mar. 1851 In confinement Ft. Mass. Since 15 March 1855
Bugler William Kerr, Burgwin 1854 Re-enlisted
Farrier Edward O’Meara, * Buffalo 17 Feb. 1850 Re-enlisted Ft. Fillmore 18 Jan. 1855; in confinement since 5 April 1855
Pvt. Abraham Allen, Albuquerque 20 xxx 1852 Returned to ranks 5 Mar. 1855
Robert W. Allen, Las Vegas 20 Mar. 1851 Re-enlist (3d) 21 Feb. 1856
Albert Atwell, Baltimore 15 Apr. 1852
Peter Albertson, Burgwin Re-enlisted.
James Buck Las Vegas 27 Mar. 1851 Re-enlist’d; 2 Jan. 1856; trans. Co, B; wounded Cieneguilla;
Neil Brewer, Ft. Mass. 15 Oct. 1852 Re-enlist’d; trans. to Co. D
William Cassidy, Taos 9 Feb 1852 Re-enlist’d; transf. to Co. K
John Cooper, * Taos 28 Nov. 1851 Re-enlisted; confined
Jonathan K. Davis, Las Vegas 15 Dec 1851 Re-enlisted; 12 June 1850
Earle Day, 12 June 1850
William Eakens, Oct. 1, 1848, Jefferson; Burgwin 24 Jan. 1855 Re-enlisted; forfeit month’ pay
Benjamin Engle, Rochester 8 Nov 1849
John Flanigan, Baltimore 17 Mar. 1853 Forfeit month’s pay.
Michael Flood, New York 15 Mar.1851
Joseph Fox, * Baltimore 26 Apr. 1852 In confinement
George Fouches, Albuquerque 11 May 1853, transferred to H Co.
William Gray, Galesto 12 Oct. 1852 Re-enlisted; in confinement; 13 July 1857, Ft. Buchanan–Co. K
John Harper, Las Vegas 7 Oct. 1851 Re-enlisted; in confinement since Mar. 15, 55
George W. Hartley, Louisville 20 Aug. 1850
Francis Hewitt, NY 1 Oct 1852
Henry Jacobs, Baltimore 27 Feb 1851 In confinement.
Adam Johnson, Boston 19 Dec. 1850 Transferred to Co. K; DS, Burgwin; re-enlisted 27 Dec. 1855 Albuquerque
Robert Johnson, Philadelphia 24 Sept. 1852 In confinement; forfeit month’s pay.
John F. Krebler, NY 5 Sept. 1851 Musketoon $11.00; Aston Pistol $7.00.
John Keebler, Ft. Leavenworth 2 Feb. 1852
Augustus Knauss, NY 21 Apr. 1853, transferred to H Co.
Daniel McFarland, NY 17 Apr. 1852 In confinement; forfeit month’s pay.
Thomas McKinley, Philadelphia 20 Oct. 1852
Patrick Madden, Baltimore 20 May 1852
Jeremiah Mahoney, Boston 19 Jan. 1851 Colt Pistol $25; trans to Co. H
James Murphy, NY 13 Jan 1853 DS Burgwin
Joseph E. B. Noms, Baltimore 18 Mar 1852
Benjamin Platiner, Philadelphia 1 Mar. 1853
John Quinn, New York 20 Dec. 1852 DS Ft. Massachusetts
George Ray New York 2 Feb. 1852 Colt $25.00; trans. to Co. B and then to H.
Richard Roberts New York 13 Dec. 1850 Transferred to Co. B
James Smith New York 10 Oct., 1848 Jefferson Barracks; re-enlisted 10, Jan. 1851 Transferred to Co. H
John Steele * Boston 19 Dec 1850 In confinement Ft. Massachusetts since Mar. 15th
Jeremiah Sullivan New York 20 Nov. 1852 Transferred to Co. B
John Walsh New York, trans. Oct. 5, 1848; re-enlisted 4 Nov. 1850 Transferred to Co. H
James Walsh New York 4 Nov 1850 Transferred to Co. K
John White Louisville 1 June 1850 Forfeited month’s pay due to mutiny.
Phillip Welsh Albuquerque 26 Mar. 1851 Re-enlisted; $13.00 Pistol; DS Burgwin
Adam Williams, Taos 26 Nov. 1853 In confinement; forfeit $10; DS Burgwin; Trans to Co. D
Thomas Williamson, Albuquerque 1 Jan. 1853 Transferred to I Co.

* facing general court martial charges for mutiny

Fort Tejon Muster Roll complied by George Stammerjohan

Muster Roll for Headquarters, Non-Commissioned Staff and Band,

Regimental Headquarters, 28 February, 1859

Colonel Thomas F. Fauntleroy On leave for 6 Months

Lieut. Colonel Benjamin L. Beall Comdg. Regt. & Post, Fort Tejon

Major George A. H. Blake On Leave since January 17, 1859

Major Enoch Steen Absent sick since May 17, 1858

1st Lt. Charles H. Ogle Regt. Adjutant, Fort Tejon

1st Lt. Henry B. Davidson Regt. Quartermaster, Fort Tejon

Headquarters Non-Commissioned Staff Enlisted At:

Sergt. Major Danmuel R. I Sturgeon May 25, 1855 Fort Reading, Ca. (re-enlistment)

Ordnance Sergt. John E. Kelly(a) May 31, 1856 Fort Orford (re-enlistment)

Regt. QM Sergt. William Duffy (a) December 1, 1858 Fort Tejon (re-enlistment)

Chief Bugler Carl Caib June 3, 1858 Nr. Los Angeles (re-enlisted)

Regimental Band

Bergman, Jacob August 11, 1858 San Francisco

Burke, Patrick June 6, 1854 New York

Chatland, Edwin February 2, 1855 Baltimore

Clarke, Charles April 1856 Fort Union, N.M.

Ferrari, Giaciento October 12, 1856 Philadelphia

Roesch, William June 10, 1857 Fort Tejon

Stark, Dominick September 1, 1858 Fort Tejon

Sugden, Reuben October 1, 1858 Fort Tejon

Tierney, Edmund P. December 7, 1858 San Francisco

No Buglers

Oliver, Francis, Farrier Feb. 12 ’55 Ft. Filmore, N.M.

a. On furlough, each for six months.

Muster Roll for Company B

John W. Davidson, Captain, Commanding Company

Orren Chapman, 1st Lieut., Died at St.Louis 7 Jan. 1859

Benjamin F. Davis, 2d Lieut., with company for duty

The Company Enlisted: At:

1st Sgt. Nathanial J. Pishon August 13, ’56 Ft. Craig, N.M.

*Sgt. Minor C. Tuttle Aug. 26, ’56 Ft. Craig, N.M.

*Sgt. Jmes W. Strawbridge July 18, ’58 Ft. Tejon

Sgt. Joseph E. Smith Feb. 1, ’55 Cleveland, Oh.

Corp. Michael Wheatley May 4, ’55 New York City

*Corp. Frederick Fischer Aug. 20, ’57 Ft. Buchanan, NMT

Corp. James McGuire Apr. 12, ’54 New York City

Corp. John Yaiser Feb 15, ’56 Ft. Fillmore, NMT

No buglers

Frances Oliver, Farrier Feb. 12, ’55 Ft. Fillmore, NMT

Privates

Allen, Robert B. Feb. 24, ’56 Ft. Filmore, N.M.

Arnold, John Sept.9, ’57 Baltimore

Barnard, William Nov. 16, ’57 Boston

Brunning, Heinrich May 23, ’54 New York City

Butler, James May 19, ’54 New York, City

Beecher, George D. Sept. 3, ’57 Harrisburg, Pa.

Betts, William June 1, ’54 New York City

**Buck, James Jan. 2, ’56 Ft. Fillmore, NM

Bresler, John Oct. 15, ’58 San Francisco

Cantrell, James Oct. 28, ’57 New York City

Carr, Joseph June 20, ’54 New York City

Carpenter, Asa Aug 29, ’57 Boston, Mass.

Connolly, Patrick June 21, ’54 New York

Coakley, Charles R. June 12 ’54 Baltimore

Cowan, William Dec. 20 ’54 Nashville, Tenn.

Culligan, Michael April 19, ’55 Ft. Fillmore, NM

Chariasis, Michael August 24, ’57 New York

Dean, James Oct. 26, ’57 New York

Dowd, John Aug. 26, ’55 Ft. Union, N.M.

Eldar, Adam Aug. 22, ’55 Ft. Fillmore, N.M.

Faber, Henry Apr. 17, ’54 New York

Forest, Joseph Y. Aug. 18, ’54 Ft. Union, N.M.

Fogerty, John March 23, ’55 Louisville, Ky.

Galleger, John Feb. 15, ’56 Ft. Fillmore, NM

*Hand, John Sept. 9, ’54 Ft Union, NM

Hade, Patrick Dec. 1 ’57 Ft. Buchanan, NM

Kriesalmayer, Henry Sept. 11 ’57 Philadelphia

*** Lohmeyer, Frederick Dec 5 ’55 Albuquerque, NM

* Maher, Edward Feb. 1, ’56 Ft. Thorn, NM

Miller, Henry May 20, ’54 New York City

Morrissey, John June 8, ’54 New York

* McCoy, Thomas July 15 ’58 Ft. Tejon

Moulton, Harrison Sept. 8 ’57 Philadelphia

****O’Meara, Edward Jan. 8 ’55 Ft. Fillmore, NM

Ott, Heinrich September 3, ’57 New York

Pryor, Robert March 9 ’54 New York

Phillip, George Sept. 11 ’58 San Francisco

Reynolds, William R. June 26, ’54 New York City

Ross, James Oct. 19, ’57 Boston

Swiss, Henry Feb. 23, ’53 St. Louis

Scherrer, John E. Sept. 27, ’53 New York

Scharf, Anton Mar. 16, ’53 Ft. Fillmore, NM

Schafle, Francis P. Nov. 6, ’58 San Francisco

Thomson, Theodore Sept 11, ’55 Ft. Stanton, NM

Tower, John S. Sept. 5, ’57 Boston

Trouton, William Aug. 24, ’57 Philadelphia

Taylor, James Jan. 25, ’59 Fort Tejon

West, John A. June 10, ’58 Baltimore

Washington, George H. April 21 ’58 San Francisco

*$2.00 additional each month for former service.

** $3.00 a month for 2d reenlistment

***German born Frederick Lohmeyer, enlisted, at age 24 years, in Company B at St Louis on April 19, 1847, discharged at Santa Fe on August 19, 1848.

****Edward O’Meara, former farrier of Co. F, who was court martialed for his participation in the 1855 riot in the Taos Plaza, see infra, was transferred to Co. B. Pvt. O’Meara was confined in the post jail at the time of this muster along with privates Beecher, Forest, Morrisey, Pryor and Washington.

Pvt. Miller – absent, sick Ft. Fillmore, since Oct. 16, ’55.

Pvts. Faber and Phillip, sick in post hospital.

Company K

James H. Carleton. Captain and Brevet Major, Comanding Company

David H. Hastings, 1st Lieut., Leave of Absence

Alfred B. Chapman, 2d Lieut.; Returned from detached duty of February 28, 1859, present for duty.

The Company: Enlisted: At:

*William McCleave, 1st Sgt. 1 Oct ’55 Albuquerque, NM

*Sgt. Emil Fritz 1 Jan. ’56 Albuquerque, NM

*Sgt. Gustav Brown 1 Dec. ’57 Ft. Buchanan, NM

Sgt. Thomas Yearwood 1 Apr. ’57 Calabaza, NM

Frederick Morris, Corp. 2 Sept. ’57 Ft. Buchanan, NM

Andrew J. Landers, Corp. 5 Feb. ’55 Knoxville, Tenn.

* Joseph Meyer, Bugler 12 Feb. ’56 Ft. Buchanan, NM

John W. Harris, Bugler 11 Dec. ’56 Albany, NY

*William Seyring, Farrier 1 Aug ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Privates

Batty, James @ 18 Sept. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Buell, Sylvester 5 Sept. ’57 Boston

Brannan, Michael 7 Feb. ’55 Jefferson Battacks, Mo.

Cannon, Mchael 7 Sept. ’57 New York

Crowley, Timothy 15 Feb. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Caskey, Samuel 21 Oct. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Creevy, William 8 Oct. ’56 Albuquerque, NM

Costellow, Thomas 15 Mar. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Corringham, Thomas 2 Feb. ’55 Cleveland

Ennis, Thomas 14 Jan. ’55 Cincinnati

**Fitzsimmons, Thomas 23 Nov. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Fitzpatrick, John 3 Sept. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Friedberg, Francis 3 Aug. ’57 Boston

**Gray, William 1 July ’57 Ft. Buchanan, NM

Glendmeyer, Frederick 10 October ’57 Baltimore

Henn, Andrew 20 March ’57 Calabasas, N.M.

Hurley, Morris 8 Sept. ’57 Boston

Herring, Robert B. 20 Oct. ’57 New York

*Johnson, Adam 27 Dec. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Jones, Robert H. 7 Feb. ’55 Knoxville, Tenn.

Louish, James 17 Jan. ’56 New York

*Maroon, Harvey 21 Sept. ’57 Ft. Buchanan, NM

* Mahan, Thomas 28 Jan, ’56 Albuquerque, NM

McNeal, Erastus 20 Jan. ’55 Columbus, Ohio

McDonald, John 18 Aug. ’57 Boston

Moore, Michael 16 Nov. ’57 Philadephia

Moody, Thomas 20 Nov. ’57 New York

Murphy, Hugh 4 Nov. ’57 New York

Mullins, James 3 Nov. ’57 Boston

Miller, Ebenezar 7 Sept. ’57 New York

*O’Carroll, John A. 27 May ’58 Ft. Yuma (Calif.)

Ogilivie, Henry 9 Sept. ’57 New York

Papp, Frederick 9 Nov. ’57 Richmond, Va.

*Quatman, Herman 15 Nov. ’55 Albuquerque, NM

Reinhart, Antony 26 Aug, ’57 New York

Richey, Hamilton 26 Oct. ’57 Philadelphia

Smythe, Henry 17 Aug. ’57 New Yrok

Smith, Abraham B, 26 Oct. ’56 San Francisco

Schaupp, Charles 11 Nov. ’57 New York

Tynon, Michael 8 Feb. ’55 St. Louis

Terrell, Rufus H. 1 Sept. ’57 Philadelphia

Taylor, Daniel 8 Oct. ’57 New York

Thompson, James 10 Oct. ’57 New York

Tooney, Peter 15 Oct. ’58 San Francisco

Van Riper, Cornelius 15 Feb. ’59 Ft. Tejon

Zabel, Gustavus 1 Aug ’55 Albuquerque

* $2.00 a month as former service.

Deserted: Henry Tolman, enlisted 29 Oct. ’59 in Boston.

Confined in post jail: Buell, Johnson, Smythe, and Taylor.

Private John A. Fulton (aka Jacob Fulmer), was dropped from regimental rolls on 20 February 1859, as a deserter from Company H, 1st US Cavalry, Kansas Territory and dismissed from the service on 25 February 1859.

Tule River War 1856

Will Gorenfeld — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:16:39 +0000

Company A, 1st Dragoons participated in the so-called Tule River War, occurring in 1856 between settlers of Four Creeks (Visalia) California and the Yokuts tribe. Here is an article from the San Francisco Bulletin describing the war.

Fort Miller, May 18^th, 1856.[1]

We have had some excitement about the Four Creek Indian War. You may have seen something of it. As usual with the Indian troubles, the whites appear to have acted with unnecessary severity in the first place. A cow was stolen and eaten, the exasperated settlers attacked and killed some defenseless Indians; the Indians, alarmed and incensed, fled to the hills, they took shelter in a well-protected valley on the Tule River, some thirty miles above the Tejon Road; a party of some sixty volunteers pursued and attacked them, but they found the Indians in a dense chaparral with a breastwork of rocks and brush thrown up across the main entrance of the valley, from behind which and the edge of the thick brush they poured a shower of arrows, and the white men thought it prudent to retire.[1] Up to this time there had been no information of the troubles given to the commanding officer here. After this battle some of the citizens sent a petition to Stewart [1] to send some soldiers over to Woodville, to protect the settlement there, and about the same time Dr. George passed through here on his way to see the governor to get arms, and authority to raise volunteer companies. I asked him why they had not applied to the Commanding Officer here to see what he could do first, but he made no explanations.

Livingston [1] started that day with twenty-five men, with orders to remain at Woodville to aid them against any attack. In the mean time there were some eighty-five volunteers still in the field; about the 7^th of this month, they made another attack on the strong holds of the Indians. They fought there for five hours, but still deemed the breast work and bushes too impregnable for a charge, so they retired and camped a mile or two from the Indian fortifications. Poindexter, the Sheriff, came over to get a field-piece, as it was decided that it was the only thing that could dislodge them. He is a very cool and determined man, and he declared that he had never seen such desperate Indians, so ready for fight and apparently so fearless. From their yells and other signs they suppose that there were about five hundred of them. The gun was dispatched that afternoon with Sergt. Thompson and three men.

We heard nothing further from the seat of war until two days since, when Mr. Eldridge, the carpenter at McCrea’s, came in and told us that on Tuesday morning Livingston, with twenty of his men and thirty-five volunteers, left the main body, (some one hundred and fifty volunteers,) in camp about two miles from the Indians’ fastness and went up to reconnoiter, and look for a road for the gun to be brought up to the attack. He had to pass directly in front of the Indians’ breast work in order to gain a hill from which to make his reconnaissance. The Indians poured a shower of arrows after them, but he took his men up the hill. He found that it would be impossible to operate with the field piece, but he saw that he could route the Indians with the few men he had, so he charged down the hill with his twenty men, and getting on the inside of the breast work charged at it, while the volunteers came on through the gaps in the bushes, and they scattered the Indians in short order; he killed some fifteen, and wounded many others.[1] They found a large Rancheria, which they burned, and recovered a good deal of stolen property – blankets, saddles, &c some horses. The Indians fled across the river, which was impassable for the whites.

When the main body of volunteers found out that this formidable band of Indians had been so easily routed, and by but fifty men, they were much chagrined and incensed; some thought that there were not so many Indians there as when the two previous attacks were made, but Poindexter and others who were in all the battles, thought differently, and said that all the Indians were there who had ever been there. I am glad to say that I’ll give Livingston great credit for his skill and promptness in planning the attack, and coolness and energy in carrying it out. The volunteers with whom I had talked, say, that L. could have routed them without any help at all, so ready and ardent were is men in the attack and pursuit.

Those in the hills have scattered, I suppose, and I fear will not be caught again collected in any numbers. There is a party of some fifty to sixty, composed partly of regulars and partly of volunteers, following them up.

[1] Assistant Surgeon Robert Murray in San Francisco Bulletin, June 12, 1856; History of Central California, 184; Phillips, Under Subjection, 187

Such is a Dragoon’s Life (State Historical Society of Missouri, July 2011, vol 105, no. 4)

Will Gorenfeld — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:03:36 +0000

Such is a Dragoon’s Life: Corporal Mathais Baker, Company B, 1st Dragoons, 1845-1849[1]

By Will Gorenfeld and Tim Kimball
The year 1845 found Mathias L. Baker, a twenty eight year old clerk from Middlesex County, New Jersey, residing in a reasonably comfortable neighborhood in St Louis. On October 17, 1845, he enlisted in the United States Army. His enlistment papers indicate that blue eyed, dark haired, fair skinned Mathias stood six feet tall. Assistant Surgeon William Hammond certified that he was free of all bodily defects and mental infirmities. Recruiting officer 1st Lieutenant Henry S. Turner certified that Baker was entirely sober when he enlisted and of lawful age (twenty one). [2]

After a short stay in the recruit depot at nearby Jefferson Barracks, on November 13, 1845, Private Baker and seven other recruits were escorted up the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin Territory, by the 1^st Dragoons Regimental Sergeant Major. From that river port the recruit party traveled another forty eight miles west, arriving at castle-like Fort Atkinson, Iowa Territory on November 25, 1845. The fort and its stone buildings, on the heights above the Turkey River, had been home to Company B of the First Dragoons since June 1842. Company B and its long-time Captain, Edwin Vose Sumner, had just returned from a late summer’s typical campaign, marching northwest almost to the Canadian border, showing the flag, and encouraging peace among the Natives. [3]

There is no detailed record of Baker’s winter at Fort Atkinson, but likely it was spent learning the rudiments of Dragoon skills—the School of the Soldier and School of the Company. It would have included dismounted and mounted drill and use of the dragoon weapons: pistol, carbine, and sabre. Baker’s other winter duties would have been caring for his assigned horse, occasional guard duty, and fatigue details. More experienced men from the company would undertake a series of assignments during the hard winter, including removing Winnebago Indians from the Neutral Ground, testifying at a murder trial, chasing deserters, and maintaining the peace during payment of annuities by Indian Agents. Baker probably had little time or inclination to visit the adjacent off post drinking sites known as “Sodom and Gomorrah,” or “Whiskey Creek,” nor spend time with the dissolute Winnebago and Minominee women found there. No indications of disciplinary problems or extended illness involving Baker are found in company records. Baker also would have learned—if he did not already know—that in the army, even in the dragoons, many of the men were chronic drunkards and shirkers.[4]

Less than five months after his enlistment, probably as a tribute to his discipline, reliability, and perhaps the legible hand of this former civilian clerk, Sumner selected Baker to be 4th corporal, the most junior of the core of eight non-commissioned officers authorized for each company. This gave Baker a raise from eight to ten dollars a month, a substantial increase in responsibility, and a set of a Non Commissioned Officers as peers who would stay with him through the duration of his life: Sergeants Frederick Muller, Benjamin Bishop, Corporals Jacob Martin, Michael Albert, Israel Haff, as well as Bugler Langford Peel.[5]
By May 11, 1846, Congress declared war on Mexico. On June 20, Baker and his comrades of Company B were ordered from Fort Atkinson, leaving it to be garrisoned by a volunteer force during the war. Reaching Prairie du Chien on June 22, they joined forces with 1^st Dragoons Captain Philip St. George Cooke’s Company K from nearby Fort Crawford, with Sumner serving as commander of the two company squadron. They and their mounts embarked on the Steamboat Cecelia and a pair of towed barges for St. Louis, traveling 370 miles downstream on the Mississippi River and arriving June 28, 1846.[6]

The original orders for Companies B and K had directed them to San Antonio, Texas, join the forces of Major General Zachary Taylor. But Dragoon Colonel and commander of the Army of the West, Stephen Watts Kearny insisted that Sumner, Cooke, and their companies (“among the very best”) were indispensable to his assignment: the conquest of Mexican-held New Mexico and California. In St. Louis, they were redirected to Fort Leavenworth, assembly and starting point for Kearny’s Army of the West. On July 3 they loaded on to the Steamboat Amaranth, traveling the length of the Missouri to that post, over 300 miles west. On July 6 they disembarked at Fort Leavenworth and, and began their march to Santa Fe on the same day, becoming the last of Kearny’s initial force to leave for the Conquest of New Mexico. Company B headed overland with a total of 63 dragoons in the ranks, having left a trail of seven deserters in its wake.[7]

Sumner’s squadron made up for lost time, traveling across the picked-over prairie. On July 31 they rendezvoused with the 1600-man balance of Kearny’s troops camped around Bent’s Fort, on the north bank of the Arkansas River. Kearny turned over command of the five dragoon companies (B, C, G, I, and K) and a St. Louis mounted volunteer company (the Laclede Rangers, equipped for dragoon service) to Sumner, the senior Captain. Crossing the Arkansas River, the border between the now-warring United States and Mexico, on August 2 Kearny (and Private Baker) began the 250-mile balance of the march down the Mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail, through Raton Pass to Santa Fe, capital of the Mexican Department of New Mexico. This portion of the march was hard on man and beast–with scanty forage for the animals and half rations for the men.[8]

The Army of the West entered an undefended and partially deserted Santa Fe on August 18, 1846. Kearny took formal possession of New Mexico late that afternoon with a flag rising and the firing of a national salute. Baker and his dragoon comrades fared well enough on the march—Missouri volunteer private John Hughes complained that Kearny favored them unfairly—but even the regulars would soon turn in their already worn out, starving horses and resort to mules or even shoe leather.[9]

Soon after arrival in Santa Fe, Kearny began planning and organizing for his California trek. Although plans were constantly changing with the circumstances, his next mission was to head to California by marching south along the Camino Real, west to the basin of the Gila River, across to the Colorado River, and enter California from the south. Kearny’s force would include his “three hundred wilderness-worn Dragoons, in shabby and patched clothing,” and a like number of emigrating Mormons recruited as infantry volunteers for California (the Mormon Battalion), which had left Fort Leavenworth in mid-August but not yet arrived in Santa Fe. In California this force was to be increased by a regiment of New York volunteers and a regular army artillery battery sent by sea.[10]

By the time Kearny returned to Santa Fe from a show-the-flag march south to Tomé, he realized that most of the Army of the West’s original horses were too worn down to make a march to California. The general ordered the dragoon horses replaced with the best mules the Quartermaster could find, directing the return of the surviving dragoon mounts to Fort Leavenworth. The dragoons had first established a grazing camp in the Galisteo Basin, south of Santa Fe. By the time of Baker’s first letter, they had moved to the village of La Cienega, in the valley of the Santa Fe River. Neither venue had enough grass to even begin to restore their mounts.[11]

First Letter:

Baker’s observations about New Mexico were fairly standard for an American who had recently arrived in the region. As with so many others, he was consciously (or unconsciously) repeating negative observation found in two very popular works about New Mexico: Josiah Gregg’s 1844, Commerce of the Prairies, and George Wilkins Kendall’s 1843 Narrative of the Santa Fé Expedition, both of which expressed a substantially jingoistic and ethnocentric view of New Mexico and New Mexicans. Baker had seen little of populated New Mexico, passing through Las Vegas and the few villages between there and Santa Fe, with a single day or two in the capital, starting south later on the march to Tomé, but being turned back to the grazing camp he wrote from shortly after that journey began.[12]

On Sept. 13, 1846, Baker wrote his sister, Mrs. Hugh Martin (1 Hudson Street in Manhattan) from the dragoon grazing camp. He described New Mexico as bare and mountainous, with only a few valleys capable of cultivation. Its homes of sun-dried bricks he found to be limited to a single story and devoid of windows, dark during day time when the door is shut, but warm in winter and cool in summer. Some of the ladies were “extraordinarily fine,” though generally the population was of “mixed” Indian blood. All this from a man who had arrived less than a month before and spent most of his time on isolated duty in the grazing camps! Baker urged his sister to write him back AND to send the latest copies of the New York Herald. He did not expect any fighting, as “the Mexican Army will not fight.” He asked about the family’s health and assured them that HE was healthy (“This is the most healthy country in the world.”) and “burnt to the colour of Mahogany and wear immense Moustachios.” He expected to be marching to Monterey, California, soon, via “Chuwauwau” (Chihuahua).[13]

Second letter:

On September 27, Kearny set off for California with all his Dragoons, a topographic engineer party, and his staff. His plans changed significantly when on October 6, he encountered eastbound Christopher Kit Carson south of Socorro. Carson carried dispatches announcing that American naval forces, Fremont’s topographical engineer party, and local American residents had seized control of California. Relying upon this information and Carson‘s assessment of the extremely limited resources available on the coming march, Kearny reduced his force to a small staff, the Topographic Engineer party, and a 100-man Dragoon escort composed of only Companies C and K. Baker’s Company B, along with Companies G and I, each stripped of their of the best of their mules, were ordered by Kearny to return to Albuquerque and winter under the overall command of Captain Sumner.[14]

On October 13, the Kearny party was below Fra Cristobal, last camp before entering the Jornado del Muerte from the north. Kearny now had learned that wheeled vehicles would be more of a hindrance than an asset on the Gila route, and sent back for pack saddles and men to collect all the rolling stock except for two small mountain howitzers and their limbers. When a last mail arrived, Kearny received notice of a series of promotions that set several final changes into motion for the stay-behind Dragoons. Sumner had been promoted to Major in the Second Dragoon regiment and ordered to join his regiment in Mexico. Kearny directed that Sumner’s Company B, already returning north with companies G and I, be broken up. Its privates were distributed among the other two companies, and recently promoted 1st Lt. John Love was to return east with the balance of company B’s non-commissioned staff and recruit the company full again.[15]

Baker would be included in Sumner’s party of seventeen Dragoons and discharged volunteers returning to Fort Leavenworth. Beginning on October 18, from Sabinal, north of Socorro, his party traveled the more direct “Dry” route of the Santa Fe Trail, bypassing Bent’s Fort. Included in the Sumner group were Love, 1st Lt. Henry Stanton, 2nd Lt. Bezaleel Armstrong (also newly promoted and headed for the Second Dragoons), the 1^st Dragoons’ non-commissioned regimental staff, and Baker’s cadre of fellow non-commissioned officers of Company B: Sergeants Muller, Martin, the newly promoted Sgt. Albert, Corporals. Haff, Baker, Nickerson, and Bugler Peel. Sgt. Bishop and Corporal McFeters—the balance of Company B’s non-commissioned staff—had headed east with earlier returning parties. Baker by now had become a solid member of this core leadership group, and would continue so for the balance of the Mexican War.[16]

Sumner passed through Santa Fe on their way out. Love secured wheat and corn as forage for the party’s mules in San Miguel, Tecolote and Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, they exchanged five unserviceable mules for five fit ones, paying the standard premium of $20 each, $100 total. This party made a well managed late Fall trip, the main group arriving at Fort Leavenworth on November 20, 1846. [17]

Sumner and Armstrong continued on to join the 2nd Dragoons in Mexico, where Sumner won Brevets of Lt. Colonel at Cerro Gordo and Colonel at Molina del Rey. Baker, Martin, Albert, Haff and Peel remained in the Dragoon detachment at Fort Leavenworth while Lt. Love and Sgt. Muller journeyed to Ohio and Indiana to seek recruits; Bishop was assigned to the regimental depot at Jefferson Barracks with 2^nd Lt. Leonidas Jenkins [18]

Three weeks after the arrival of the Sumner return party at Fort Leavenworth, on Dec. 15, 1846, Baker began penning a letter to his namesake nephew, Matthais Lee Baker Martin, son of his sister, Mrs. Hugh Martin, to whom he had addressed the first of this series of letters. It seems young Martin had written his uncle, telling him that he “hoped” that he was NOT in the army! Baker shot back with pride in his service, his role in the occupation of New Mexico and his achievement of non-commissioned rank. Corporal Baker described the Sumner party’s return trip: two wagons and a carriage (probably a spring wagon) with most of the men mounted on mules and living largely off game. They had a single brush with the increasingly aggressive Indians, at what Baker called “Rocky Point,” probably Point of Rocks, the beginning of that dangerous middle portion of the Santa Fe Trail in which native raiders often held the upper hand. Towards evening Baker and his comrades encountered a single native lurking outside their camp and chased him off with carbine fire. The Corporal speculated that the fugitive was a “Camanche” who would now recognize and avoid Dragoons. Ten of the party’s mules died on the journey, leaving most of the men to walk the last one hundred and fifty miles.[19]

Third Letter:

Lt. Love sought to recruit a full company of men quickly, return to the war, and actually TASTE gunpowder before the war was over. On December 20, 1846, he wrote to Roger Jones, the Army’s grandfatherly Adjutant General, expressing how “extremely anxious” he was “to fill the Company which fortune has given me the command” and that he expected to take the field by April 1, 1847. Finding recruits in a hurry was not going to be an easy task. One of Love’s West Point classmates, also on recruiting duty, complained to him in February of 1847 that, after “pegging away since some time last summer and [he had] done any thing but a ‘land office’ business” finding Hoosier recruits for his regiment.[20]

February of 1847 found Lt. Love in Indianapolis, Indiana, with his recruiting flag draped from a balcony of the Drake Hotel. He placed the army’s prepared advertisement in the Indianapolis State Journal, requesting the wartime services of men of good character, between the ages of 18 and 35. “None need apply to enter the service but those who are determined to serve the period of their enlistment honestly and faithfully.” The advertisement optimistically promised each mounted recruit eight dollars a month, good quarters, the best of medical attention, as well as a “large supply of comfortable and genteel clothing.” The recruiting laws, now having been changed by Congress, made service in the regulars somewhat more attractive. A recruit was now allowed to opt for a shorter enlistment, the “duration of the war,” instead of only a five year term with no alternative.[21]

The 1st Dragoons were a mounted regiment; the five Mexican War volunteer regiments from Indiana, were all infantry. Lt. Love knew that he had an ace in the hole and he was quick to play it–pointing out to the Hoosier farm boys the glory of their becoming splendidly clothed and mounted “bold dragoons”–whose military status, pay, uniform, weapons, and bearing were unquestionably superior to that of the humble and often ill-clad “doughboys” of the volunteers or regular infantry, stumbling along with their “fence rails” (a derogatory term for the long, heavy musket with which they were perpetually burdened). When Love’s bright-eyed recruits arrived at Newport Barracks, Kentucky, however, they found there were no horses available and, worse, infantry officers were daily putting them through the wearisome close order drill of the foot soldier. Many of Love’s recruits were not happy with their training at Newport Barracks, and wrote to tell him so.[22]

Due to the immediate need for a completed company, recruits would be limited in their training to the basics: mounted and dismounted drill, care of their mounts and equipment, and use and care of their carbines, sabres, and pistols. Many recruits would have less than two months to develop adequate skills, a time frame far better than volunteer received and typical of the other two 1^st Dragoon companies reorganized during the Mexican War. It was incumbent upon Stanton, Jenkins and the non-commissioned cadre of company B at Fort Leavenworth and Jefferson Barracks to use the available time to train the recruits on hand with the skills necessary for them to be competent soldiers. [23]

At Jefferson Barracks Lt. Leonadis Jenkins had been seeking men, horses and equipage for B Company around the St. Louis area. On February 17, 1847, Jenkins marched his accumulation of twenty five recruits and their mounts more than 300 miles overland across Missouri to Fort Leavenworth in sixteen days. There they would undergo further mounted training under the tutelage of Albert, Baker, and Peel. On return to Jefferson Barracks, Jenkins wrote a March 20, 1847, letter to Love boasting of his completed trip, the quality of his recruits, the status of equipping the company, and army gossip. Jenkins promised that if more mounts could be furnished, he could advance the training of the next group of Company B recruits at the Depot.[24]

By April, the Company B non-commissioned officers available for training the initial recruits at Fort Leavenworth were down to Baker, Sgt. Albert, and Bugler Peel, under the command of Stanton. Bishop was at Jefferson Barracks and Haff had joined Love at the recruiting rendezvous in Indiana.[25]

The third letter was also written by Baker for his namesake nephew. Dated April 28, 1847, it reflected on his daily duties, the training of the recruit party left by Jenkins on March 4, the prospects and schedule for Company B as it completed its reorganization and returned to service. Baker was hoping to dissuade his nephew from the common notion that all soldiers’ lived an easy life in garrison—perhaps an additional response to the nephew’s apparent negative opinion of the army mentioned before. Baker wrote that while an infantryman’s life might be easy, a Dragoon’s life was filled from Reveille (at sunup) to final Tatoo (long after dark), and must always be prepared to ride out. “Such is a Dragoon’s life…” Baker wrote of how difficult it was training 25 recruits with only three non-commissioned officers, “especially when they are sometimes so Dutch as to not understand or be understood.” And he figured that the company was likely to be full enough to be officially reorganized “in about three weeks” (actually two and a half weeks, May 15), and would either be sent south to join Scott in his assault on Mexico City or returned to Santa Fe. Baker wrote that he preferred the latter, as the “climate is the most healthy” in the world. As for the future, perhaps Baker would stay in the army if “inducements” were held forth, but in such a case he surely would take a furlough and visit his nephew.[26]

Fourth Letter:

Love would bring twenty five men he had recruited in the East with him to Jefferson Barracks on April 25, 1847. There they joined with the on-hand recruits and recycled veterans—sick returned to health, confined men returned to duty—to make a contingent of fifty eight men when Company B was officially reorganized on May 15, 1847. The company marched for Fort Leavenworth that same day. [27]

The Missouri Republican was quite impressed with what they saw in a public drill of the company in St. Louis on May 11:

“[Lt. Love] has with him a very fine company of men and they are probably the best fitted and prepared for service of any company which has ever left this city. They are all mounted on horses which in appearance, for strength and beauty, cannot be surpassed in or out of the service, and their military trappings correspond. When the company is full, as it will be upon its arrival at Fort Leavenworth, they will of themselves constitute a body in appointments, command and stamina, almost sufficient to overrun a large portion of New Mexico.”[28]

George Ruxton, an English officer touring Mexico and the West in mufti, observed this same group of fifty Company B recruits and Lt. Love as they were finishing their march from St. Louis to Fort Leavenworth in late May. Ruxton was less than impressed with what he saw and wrote that while the group was “superbly mounted” on beautiful horses “fifteen hands high, in excellent condition,” the raw recruits were “soldierlike neither in dress nor appearance.” [29]

The reorganized company arrived at Fort Leavenworth on May 31, joining with the on-hand group of thirty four NCOs and men already on hand. With B Company recruited up to full strength and well mounted—albeit neither men nor horses fully trained— and present at Fort Leavenworth, the army considered it ready to march to Santa Fe. The troops stationed in newly conquered New Mexico and the locals provisioning them had not been paid for several months. Now Company B would escort Paymaster Major Charles Bodine and $350,000 in specie on his trip to Santa Fe, and do the same for slower moving quartermaster trains and beef herds already en route as they were overtaken.[30]

A week after arrival of the reorganized Company B at Fort Leavenworth, Lt. Love, the only officer, with Corporal Baker and an eighty three man strong Company B, paymaster Bodine, and various supernumeraries, paraded out of the fort on June 7, 1847 in a column of fours. Each dragoon was astride his government sorrel, the column trailed by the nine mule-drawn wagons of the paymaster and three more of Company B. Following the custom of the time it is likely they were played out of the Fort by First Dragoon Principal Musician John Schnell and the 1^st Dragoon Regimental band, with a selection of songs that included “The Girl I Left Behind.” This time the company left six deserters behind—including Privates Isaac Cameron (who also had deserted in St. Louis the year before) and John Stein, recaptured the next day across the Missouri in Weston.[31]

Prior to the commencement of the Mexican War, Native Americans living near the Santa Fe Trail controlled their outrage at the invasion and destruction of their range by raiding only the smaller trading caravans, confining themselves to horse stealing, pilferage, and simple begging. Experienced traders traveled in large numbers, heavily armed, and were rarely attacked. By 1847 the Santa Fe Trail became the highway of conquest as a vast stream of troops, animals and supplies headed west along the 873-mile path that crossed the Great Plains from Ft. Leavenworth to Santa Fe. As troop movements and supply trains proliferated during the war, the travelers not only polluted the streams and spread contagion, but consumed the sparse grasses, fuel, and water along the trail, and butchered or chased off the game. Drought put further pressure on the Plains tribes, as did the necessary hunting of many once-eastern tribes, Cherokee, Delaware, Osage, and others, forced to migrate and subsist on the fringes. Starvation and disease were becoming progressively more widespread among the Plains tribes, even more so after 1845. The boldest and most desperate of them began to assault nearly every one of the caravans and quartermaster trains—even those accompanied by troops—that traveled on the route. It was reported that the raiding was encouraged or participated in by Mexicans, fugitive slaves, and American renegades. During the summer of 1847, 47 Americans would be killed, 330 wagons destroyed, and 6,500 head of stock plundered. [32]

Although Lt. Love, in his six years of military service, had never commanded a troop in the field and most of his men had limited training, his experience suggested that tribesmen would not be so foolish as to attack this large force of armed Dragoons. In 1843, while on an expedition on the Plains, he wrote, “6 men could have kept off 500 Indians as they never approach within gun shot.” Corp. Baker observed the carnage caused by the tribesmen. Baker was confident that his company would soon give battle with the Comanches and Pawnees and avenge the deaths of travelers recently murdered on the Santa Fe Trail. [33]

On June 14, 1847, a day Company B spent at Council Grove, the usual rendezvous site on edge of contested portion of the Santa Fe trail, Baker responded to his nephew’s letter brought with the previous day’s express in our fourth letter. He described the party as including over one hundred men, twelve wagons, the paymaster and his specie, and another one hundred and twenty wagons moving slowly ahead of them, to be added to those already escorted as the faster moving Company B caught up with them. Baker wrote that eight hundred lodges of Comanche and Pawnees were within 200 miles and that he hoped that Company B would get a chance to give them the “severe punishment” they “deserved.” He told of the suffering of men in a returning quartermaster train the Company had encountered and claimed that Native’s attacks had been encouraged by the Mexicans. Baker speculated that Company B might be returning to guard the threatened central portion of the trail after delivering Bodine and the specie to Santa Fe. He advised his namesake to obey his parents and study, and hoped to see him someday.[34]

Fifth and Final Letter:

Newly appointed Indian Agent, but old time mountain man Thomas “Brokenhand” Fitzpatrick, making his way to his assignment at Bent’s Fort, overtook the Dragoon column at Council Grove and traveled on with it and our bold corporal. Fitzpatrick, a trapper, guide, scout, and Indian agent, had ranged the frontier since 1823. Fitzpatrick would later write that the Dragoons and paymaster’s wagon train “traveled along happily and with much expedition, until we arrived at Pawnee Fork, a tributary of the Arkansas River, three hundred miles from Fort Leavenworth.” It was at this point that, on the early evening of June 23, they came upon the encampment of three large government commissary wagon trains (two outbound and one homebound). These wagons had been attacked two days prior by a large body of Native Americans Indians, who left three men wounded. The eastbound train had lost most of its oxen to the marauding raiders. Left without the means of hauling several of its wagons any further, the wagon master destroyed the badly needed wagons.[35]

Seeking the dragoons’ protection, the three trains traveled along with the dragoons at a brisk pace, making 27-miles on the 25th and, camped on a plain in about a mile from the Arkansas River. The dragoons made their camp on the north bank of the Arkansas River, at a site known as Pawnee Fork. Two of the trains made camp nearby. The third, headed by Hayden, a wagon master reluctant to take orders from young Lt. Love, camped almost out of sight. Although the plain was sandy and nearly barren of grasses, the river bottoms provided good grazing for the animals. The treeless prairie was bisected by two washes that flowed into the Arkansas, known as Little Coon Creek and Big Coon Creek.[36]

In the pre-dawn hours of June 26, 1847, Lieutenant Love mounted and rode to the top of a slight hill. The sky was clear and a slight breeze blew up from the south. This young officer knew that horses and mules should not be allowed to freely graze until it was safe to do so—i.e., when no raiders lurked in high grasses of the nearby washes. For the moment, all horses and mules remained tethered to the picket lines. Looking to the west he noticed that Hayden had turned his oxen out of his evening’s corral (formed of wagons circled, wheel to axel) to graze. Love opened his spyglass for a better view of the early morning countryside. He saw well over one hundred Comanches spilling out of the Big Coon Creek wash. Lt. Love could see the teamsters frantically grabbing what few clumsy weapons they possessed and firing wildly at the raiders. The Comanches fought back, wounding three teamsters; within minutes they had stampeded Hayden’s oxen and seized control of the herd.[37]

The next day Baker began the final one of our known letters to his nephew from the Pawnee Fork campsite, as Company B lay by to allow its seriously wounded a chance to recover before moving on. He told how they had encountered the quartermaster trains and incorporated them loosely into their party, after the homebound train had been attacked, stock stolen, and men wounded. Baker wrote of how Hayden’s stock was carelessly turned out that morning and quickly being driven off. All of Company B saddled up, Baker being one of the first. Only a party of twenty one dragoons and Sergt. Bishop, according to Baker, were allowed out to halt the stock theft, the rest being held back to protect the camp from a large party of threatening hostiles on the opposite side of the Arkansas. Baker wrote when he saw the Bishop group get cut off by at least two hundred warriors, he begged for a party of twenty dragoons to intercede, but was refused by Love. The teamsters from the train whose stock was being run off had themselves fallen back and left Bishop and his party helpless and surrounded. Bishop’s dragoons retreated as quickly as they could, but five men were unable to reach the camp, and were later found dead. Of those getting back, Bishop and four others were badly wounded—Baker himself leaving the camp to bring in the wounded Farrier, John Lovelace, holding him on his horse until safe inside. After roll was called, Baker was part of the group that went out to recover their comrades’ bodies. That day they found four bodies, badly mutilated, the next morning they recovered the last one.[38]

Baker was not sure what would happen if the Comanches would attack again, or they would be able to move on before being hit again. “Fort” Mann, a small and adobe and cottonwood
palisade erected by quartermaster teamsters, the strongest point on the central trail, just had been abandoned under repeated attacks. Baker told his nephew that if he should perish in coming assaults, he wanted him to have whatever the government owned him and anything else of value, and “if you see me no more, spare a moment to think of your uncle.”[39]
We have not, as yet, found any later letters from Mathias Baker. From military records, we know that he and his fellows did NOT return to guard the Santa Fe Trail nor to Fort Leavenworth until after the end of the war. Six weeks after he wrote his last letter Baker was with Love’s battered command when it reached the end of the Trail in Santa Fe on August 6, 1847. Though bloodied and reduced in numbers, these dragoons had accomplished their primary mission of protecting the paymaster funds and quartermaster trains. Now they stayed on to reinforce New Mexico. At this time the twelve month enlistments of Price’s Missouri volunteer 1846 force had been completed and the companies had marched back to Fort Leavenworth to be paid off and discharged. This left the occupation to companies G and I, and now B, of the 1^st Dragoons, four volunteer companies being reenlisted in Santa Fe to create the Santa Fe Battalion, and the last hand full of Price’s original force. Soon though, New Mexico would be crowded once again with newly recruited “for the war” volunteers, including both a mounted regiment and infantry battalion from Missouri and an infantry regiment from Illinois.[40]

On August 19, 1847, Love turned in the wagons, mules and gear Company B had used in conveying Bodine and his specie. They left Santa Fe at the end of the month, spending four days in Albuquerque, and formed a grazing camp near the mountain village of San Antonio. On October 15, they returned to Albuquerque and its Dragoon garrison. In December, Company B received all the mules, guns, and ordnance it would use as a scratch light artillery battery in Price’s hoped-for expedition against Chihuahua—including two 24-pound howitzers, two of the captured Mexican 5-pounder guns, the recaptured “Texian” 6-pounder, and one of the dragoons’ on-hand 12-pound Mountain Howitzers. During December, three privates died of illness.[41]
The company’s captured deserter, Pvt. John Stein, had been released from confinement and sent on by Acting Regimental Commander, Lt. Col. Clifton Wharton as part of the escort party for the returning Sterling Price, now promoted to Brigadier General of volunteers. Price, his staff, and the escort arrived in Santa Fe on December 9, 1847. Stein immediately disappeared again, to be recaptured on the 16th. Twelve days later an Albuquerque general court martial composed of Dragoon officers found him guilty of both desertions as well as selling his army great coat. He was sentenced to forfeit all pay, have his head shaved, be stripped of all badges, receive 50 lashes “well laid on, with a raw hide ,” and be drummed out, in front of the assembled Dragoon command. Other Company B Dragoon miscreants were tried before the same court along with Dragoons from companies G and I. Stein was convicted as were all others charged. His horrible sentence approved and carried out.[42]
The month of January was filled with preparation for a possible march south by Price, his volunteers stationed below Albuquerque, and the three Dragoon companies. On February 11, Company B marched, the last to do so. An alarm had been sent up by Missouri volunteers from occupied El Paso, announcing the approach of General Urea and 3,000 Mexican troops. The company made a difficult crossing of the swollen and ice-choked Rio Grande above Fra Cristobal. On February 28, Company B reached El Paso, a 280 mile journey from Albuquerque. Price left that city the next day with his advance units, leaving the slower artillery and infantry to catch up. Price’s immediate command reached Chihuahua on March 7, to find their prey—Governor Angel Trias, with a few Mexican regulars and several hundred recently enrolled militia—had fled south. Price again set off at a fast pace, following the wheel ruts of Trias’ cannon. At 9 a. m. the morning of March 9, the American advance group brought Trias and his 900 man force to ground in the town of Santa Cruz de Rosales, which Price immediately besieged.[43]
Price had sent back an express, reaching the slower parties on March 12 and hurrying them forward. Love and Company B immediately left their baggage wagons behind and began a fast march, covering 150 miles. They reached Chihuahua on the 15th, pressed (confiscated) fresh mules for the guns, and hurried the last 60 miles at a pace that put them in front of the enemy town at 5 a. m. on March 16. As Company B wheeled its six guns into position, it was reported that the volunteers heard the defenders cry “Estos dos carajos!” “Here come two monsters!” Company B immediately began firing shell and canister against fortified Mexican positions in the city center. Company B’s Dragoons-as-light-artillery played a major role in the victory at Santa Cruz de Rosales that day—the last of the already-concluded Mexican War.[44]
General Price’s report declared: “The distinguished conduct of Lieutenant Love–in the highly efficient manner in which his battery was served; in the rapidity of movement which characterized his conduct, when ordered to reinforce me, traveling night and day, going into battery four hours after his arrival, and his unceasing efforts during the entire day in working his battery–deserves especial notice…” Love apportioned plenty of praise to the men who did the fighting, singling out section commanders Sergeants Muller and Bishop (still weak from his Coon Creek wounds), gun commander Corp. Haff, and all of the privates. The company suffered two men severely wounded and five slightly, one of the heavier tolls among the American units engaged.[45]
Company B was ordered to serve as part of the occupation force in or near the beautiful city of Chihuahua for the following four months of peace. There some Dragoons fell in love and everyone enjoyed the city life, bullfights and horse races. When the peace finally was approved, army command ordered Chihuahua to be evacuated. On July 17, Company B began its return march to Santa Fe. On August 19, 1848, the ordnance was turned in there and the “for the war” enlistees discharged. On August 21, Company B once again was broken up, with the few remaining privates distributed to Dragoon Companies G and I, again remaining in New Mexico. And again, Corporal Baker would form part of the core of a rebuilt Company B. With Love, Muller, Bishop, Haff, and Peel, much of the same party as Baker had traveled the length of the Santa Fe Trail with three times in two years, he left Santa Fe on September 2, 1848, arriving at Fort Leavenworth twenty six days later.[46]
Baker was shown on the October 1848 return as a Sergeant for the first time, promoted up as Muller took the position of Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant. Captain Robert H. Chilton, the designated commanding officer of Company B, arrived at Jefferson Barracks to take command at that post on November 9. Recruits began filling out the reforming company the same month. Lt. Love left on leave.[47]
Once again, on December 19, 1848, a Company B recruit group was mounted at Jefferson Barracks and marched out for Fort Leavenworth where Sgt. Baker and his non-com friends awaited them. The newly organized company arrived on Dec. 31, 1848. In January, Baker’s first company commander, Sumner, now promoted to Brevet Colonel and line Lt. Colonel, arrived at the post as the new regimental commander. That same month Baker, Sumner’s one time clerk recruit from Fort Atkinson days, was designated as Acting Sergeant Major of the First Dragoons. On February 8, 1849, the promotion was made permanent, and with it Baker became the senior non-commissioned officer of the regiment. When the reorganized Company B left to reoccupy Fort Kearny on May 11 (nine of these recent recruits deserted on the three days before the company marched—some things never change), Baker stayed at Fort Leavenworth with his new regimental duties, along with Sumner, Lt. Love (now Regimental Quarter Master), and Quarter Master Sergeant Muller. The history and traditions of the company would travel with Bishop, Martin, Haff, and Peel, and several of the once new recruits who had fought Comanche and Mexicans, now part of a new Non Commissioned core.[48]
Some four months later, on June 7, 1849, Sergeant Major Baker suddenly sickened and died of Cholera (then epidemic in the West) at Fort Leavenworth. As did so many unheralded antebellum regulars in dirty shirt blue, Baker stood ready to pour his life-blood freely pro bono publico and died in the quest of manifest destiny, four and one half years after he began his dragoon adventure. That his death was from sickness rather than in battle was hardly exceptional; in the war and on the frontier deaths of soldiers from disease far outnumbered those in combat. One hopes that his friends Sumner, Love, and Muller were able to be part of their comrade’s Dragoon funeral.[49]
No marker for our bold Dragoon was found twelve years later when the graves from the “Soldiers Burying Ground” were moved to what became Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery. Baker’s remains likely lie there among some two hundred mostly anonymous dead of those earlier decades, far away from family and childhood friends. Such was a Dragoon’s death.[50]

Endnotes

The Baker Letters of letters Sept. 13, 1846, Santa Fe; Dec. 13, 1846, Fort Leavenworth; and April 28, 1847, Fort Leavenworth, were found as photocopies of originals in the Beinecke Rare Book and Library, Yale University, WA MSS S-502, B175. Extracts of these same letters were found, with two additional complete letters (June 14, 1847, Council Grove; and June 27, 1847, Pawnee Fork), all in typescript form, in the Missouri Historical Society Archives, Mexican War Collection 1846-1940, Mathias Baker Folder, RSN: 01/A1037. Subsequent references to these five feature letters will only be as Baker Letters, referring to the first three from the Beinecke, the last two from the Missouri Historical Society.

[1] A Dragoon, in the United States Army, was a utility soldier, intended generally to served mounted, armed with a sabre, pistols, and carbine. The regulations provided for his service on foot as required, at which time his pay was reduced. Baker served in the First Dragoon Regiment, established 1833. In 1836 a second dragoon regiment was formed; both consisting of ten companies, designated A-K, with no J (a duplicate of the cursive I, too easily confused). At the beginning of the Mexican War dragoon company size limits were expanded to a minimum of sixty four and maximum of one hundred privates, plus three officers, eight non-commissioned officers, and four specialists (Captain) Abner Riviere Hetzel, Military Laws of the United States, Third Edition (Washington City: G. Templeman, 1846), 232. 275-278, 282. There are two excellent and extensive memoirs of enlisted dragoon life by men who, like Baker, served as members of Company B. Private James A. Hildreth was in the original Company B and described its first year, 1833-34, in Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains (New York: Wiley & Long, 1836); Sergeant Percival Green Lowe described his enlistment during 1849-1854, including mentions of many of Baker’s one time comrades, in Five Years a Dragoon (’49 to ’54) (Kansas City, Mo.: The F. Hudson Publishing Co., 1906). Private (later Brevet Brigadier General) Samuel E. Chamberlain penned a rollicking, somewhat exaggerated story of his Mexican War adventures in Company E, My Confession: The Recollections of a Rogue (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956). Sergeant Major Frank Clarke succeeded Baker as Regimental Sergeant Major; he also served in Company F in New Mexico; his letters have been collected and edited by Darlis Miller as Above a Common Solidier: Frank and Mary Clarke in the American West and Civil War, 1847-1872 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,1997). Private, sometimes Sergeant, James A. Bennett (who enlisted and served as James Bronson) served in New Mexico variously with Companies I, G, and B; his occasionally truth-stretching diary of two 1^st Dragoon enlistments and a desertion was edited by Clinton E. Brooks & Frank D. Reeve, as Forts and Forays: A Dragoon in New Mexico, 1850-1856 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press: 1996). The memoir, “Personal Recollections—A Trumpeter’s Notes (‘52-’58),” of Bugler (Later Chief Bugler) William Drown, which includes his time in Company H, 1^st Dragoons, also in New Mexico, is contained in Brevet Brigadier General Theophilus F. Rodenbough’s From Everglade to Canyon with the Second United States Cavalry (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000). While focused on the 2^nd Dragoons, the work is filled with memoirs from men of both dragoon regiments. The composited articles and journals of 1^st Dragoon Captain, later Brevet Major General, Philip St. George Cooke, are in Scenes and Adventures in the Army (Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakeston, 1856), and The Conquest of New Mexico and California: An Historical and Personal Narrative (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1878). Cooke’s Company K, served with Baker and Company B from June-October 1846, the beginning months of the Mexican War, covered on pages 10-86 in the later work.

[2]Enlistment papers, Mathais L. Baker (Washington, D.C., National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780-1917, Record Group 94, 1845, volume 44, entry 271). “Baker Matthias M, ns Myrtle e of 2nd.” Green’s St. Louis City Directory, 1845, 15. Baker’s first name is found with both a single and a double “t;” we use the form found on the Dragoon rolls (his own signature was “M. L. Baker”). William Hammond, SR., assistant surgeon 1 June 1834, Maryland, promoted to surgeon 7 Aug. 1847, died at Benicia, California, 13 Feb. 1851. Heitman, Register, 74; “Hammond W, M.D., U.S.A., ns Washington Av w of 3^rd,” Green’s St. Louis City Directory 1845, 76.

Henry Smith Turner, was born in Virginia, 1811, attended West Point, graduating 1834, and assigned to the Dragoons. At the time of Baker’s enlistment Turner was a 1^st Lt.; in April 1846 he was promoted to Captain and soon made Acting Assistant Adjutant General to the Army of the West; Dwight L. Clarke, “Introduction,” in The Original Journals of Henry Smith Turner (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966) 9-15, also George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy [3^rd. Edition], 2 vols., (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company: 1891), #770. All U.S.M.A. graduates are assigned a unique Cullum number, ordered by chronology, then class rank. ANY set of Cullum’s Register will show graduates’ biographies sequentially by number, regardless of volume, publisher, or date, and hence, graduate’s information from Cullum is cited by number, i.e. Cullum, Register, #770 (no pages numbers).

[3]National Archives and Records Adminstration (hereafter, NARA), Returns from Regular Cavalry Regiments, 1833-1916; First Cavalry; 1845-1847 (Microfilm Publication M744, Roll 2), First Cavalry; 1848-1850 (Roll ), Records of U.S. Regular Army Mobile Units, Record Group 393 (Washington, D. C: National Archives, 1972); hereafter NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847 and NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1848-1850. Company B, 4^th Quarter 1845, Regiment, Nov. 1845, and Regimental History, 1845; also C. Stanley Stevenson, “Expeditions in Dakota,” South Dakota Historical Collections, Volume IX (1918), 347-375. Edwin Vose Sumner, born in Boston 1797, was commissioned directly as a 2^nd Lt. in 1819, became commanding officer Company B, (1^st) Dragoons on creation of the Regiment in 1833, and was promoted Major, 2^nd Dragoons, June 30, 1846. Heitman, Register, 836.

[4]“Fort Atkinson, 1840-46,” Jeffery T. Carr and William E. Whittaker, Frontier Forts of Iowa: Indians, Traders, and Soldiers, 1682-1862, edited by William E. Whittaker, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2009), 145-160; Francis P. Prucha, Broadax & Bayonet: The Role of the United States Army In the Development of the Northwest, 1815-1860 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995) 36-37, 129-130; NARA, 1^st Dragoon returns 1845-1847, Company B and Regiment, January-May 1845.

[5] NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Company B, April, 1846; Adjutant General and Brigadier General Rodger Jones, General Order #2, January 8, 1847, as published by directive in (St. Louis) Missouri Republican, January 28, 1847.

[6]Justin Smith, The War With Mexico, 2 volumes (New York, McMillan & Co. 1919) 1:181-183; NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Sumner Squadron (Co.s B & K), June 1846; Company K commanding officer Captain Philip St. George Cooke, was born in Virginia and graduated from West Point in 1827. He too was an original officer of the Dragoon regiment, becoming a Captain in 1835. Cooke would serve as a volunteer Lt. Colonel commanding the Mormon Battalion after arrival in New Mexico. Cullum, Register, #492

[7]NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Sumner Squadron, June, July 1846; Louise Barry, The Beginning of the West: Annals of the Kansas Gateway to the American West 1540-1854 (Topeka, KS: Kansas State Historical Society, 1972), 623; Stephen Watts Kearny, Winning the West: General Stephen Watts Kearny’s Letter Book 1846-1847, edited by Hans von Sachsen-Altenburg and Laura Gabiger (Boonville, MO: Pekitanoui Publications: 1998), 134 (Kearny to Brooke, May 31, 1846). Colonel, later Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny entered the Army as a young man from New Jersey in 1812 to fight the British; he was made Lt. Col. of the newly created Dragoons in 1833 and in 1836 became the regiment’s commander. His vast experience on the western plains, the Santa Fe Trail, and his presence at Fort Leavenworth made him a natural choice as commander of the Army of the West in May of 1846; Dwight L. Clarke. Stephen Watts Kearny: Soldier of the West (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966) 101-115; Heitman, Register, 380.

[8] NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Sumner Squadron, June, July 1846; Barry, The Beginning of the West, 623; National Archives, Orders issued by Brig. Gen. Stephen W. Kearny and Brig. Gen. Sterling Price to the Army of the West, 1846-1848 (Microfilm Publication T1115), Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, Record Group 94 (Washington, D. C: National Archives, ND) Orders No. 11, July 31, 1846, hereafter NARA, Orders, Army of the West; Abraham Robinson Johnston, Journal, in Marching with the Army of the West, Volume IV, The Southwest Historical Series, edited by Ralph P. Bieber (Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1974), 92

[9]2^nd Lieutenant George Rutledge Gibson, Journal of a Soldier Under Kearny and Doniphan 1846-1847,

edited by Ralph P. Bieber, (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1935) 203-206; 1^st Lt.Christian Kribben, letter of Aug. 19, 1846 in (St Louis) Täglich Anzeiger des Westens Sept. 28, 1846 (all items from Anzeiger and (St. Louis) Deutsche Tribüne translated by Kimball); James McGoffin, letter of August 22, 1846, in, Brothers on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua Trails: Edward James Glasgow and William Henry Glasgow 1846-1848, edited by Mark L. Gardner (Nitwot, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1993), 87; Private Marcellus Bell Edwards, Journal, in Marching with the Army of the West, 139-140, 158-159; Lieut. Col., W. H. Emory, Congressional Serial 517, Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, from Fort Leavenworth in Missouri, to San Diego, in California, Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30^th Congress, First Session (1848), 32-33, 36, hereafter Emory, Notes of a Military Reconnaissance; Cooke, Conquest, 70-71.

[10] Letter of Sept. 24, 1846, to Adj. Gen. Jones, in Kearny, Letterbook, 168-169; also see Army of the West Orders No.s 18 (Aug. 27, 1846) and 22 (Sept. 18, 1846), Special Order No. 8 (Sept. 20, 1846), in NARA, Orders, Army of the West, 1846-1848; Cooke, Conquest, 69-70. Actual count of Dragoons present for service on the September 30, 1846 return is 317.

[11] Cooke, Conquest,51-71.

[12] See: Josiah Gregg , Commerce of the prairies: or, The journal of a Santa Fe trader, during eight expeditions across the great western prairies, and a residence of nearly nine years in northern Mexico, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. W. Moore, 185); and George Wilkins Kendall, Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1844); John Taylor Hughes, Doniphan’s expedition and the conquest of New Mexico and California, edited by William Elsey Connelley (Topeka, KS: Published by the editor, 1907) 207-217; George Rutledge Gibson, Journal of a Soldier, 209-245; see also Auguste deMarle’s letters of August 31, 1846 and September 16, 1846 in (St. Louis) Deutsche Tribüne, October 10 and 25, 1846.

[13] Baker to “Dear Sister” (Mrs. Hugh Martin), 1 Hudson Street (Manhattan), New York, from Santa Fe, Mexico, Sept. 13, 1846. An extract of this Baker letter was published in, Chronicles of the Gringos: the U. S. Army in the Mexican War, 1846-1848, Accounts of Eyewitnesses & Combatant, edited by George Winston Smith and Charles Judah (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1868) 123-124. Baker is incorrectly identified in the editors’ comments as “a traveler en route to Mexico.”

[14] NARA, Letters received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main Series); Papers relating to the activities of Maj. Gen. Stephen W. Kearny and to the Army of the West 1846-1847 (Microfilm Publication M567, Roll 319), Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, Record Group 94 (Washington, D. C: National Archives, 1965), Kearny letters of Oct. 6 and 11, 1846 (both to Adj. Gen. Jones), and Oct. 9, 1846 (to Sumner); a published but unsigned letter from “commander of companies C and K” (Benjamin Moore) to “relative” (probably Moore’s father-in-law, Judge Mathew Hughes) of Oct. 6, 1846, from “Camp on the Rio Grande Del Norte,” in Jefferson [Mo.] Inquirer, December 1, 1846.

[15]NARA Orders, Army of the West, Kearny, Order No. 35, Oct. 10, 1846; Turner, Original Journals, 80-83. Emory, Notes of a Reconnaissance, 55-56. Just-promoted 1^st Lieutenant John Love was to become a central character in Baker’s life as the new commander of Company B. Born in Virginia, a resident of Tennessee when appointed to West Point, Love graduated and was assigned to the First Dragoons in 1841. Since then he had garnered typically extensive experience on the plains and Rockies. As 2^nd Lt. of Moore’s Company C, Love had been on recruiting duty in Dayton Ohio, from 1845 until the outbreak of the war. Companies C (without Love) and G had left Fort Leavenworth on June 5, 1846, being the first departing detachment of the Army of the West. Love traveled as a supernumerary on Kearny’s staff, leaving June 30, 1846, returning to Company C at Bent’s Fort the end of July; Cullum, Register, #1072, Barry, Beginning of the West, 591, 620. Love had been the officer who acted as negotiator for Cooke as the Dragoons disarmed the Texian partisan “Battalion of Invincibles” lurking on the Santa Fe Trail at Jackson’s Grove June 30, 1843. Philip St. George Cooke, edited by William E. Connelley, “A Journal of the Santa Fe Trail,” in Mississippi Valley Historical Quarterly, Vol. XII. No. 2(June, 1925), 227-236.

[16]NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Companies B, G, & I, Oct. 1846; 2^nd Lt. Henry W. Stanton, from New York, had graduated from the Military Academy in 1842 and been assigned to the 1^st Dragoons. He had accompanied Capt. Moore to New Mexico, where his Company was broken up. Upon his return to Fort Leavenworth, he would serve a dual role, as Acting Assistant Adjutant General for the 1^st Dragoons and commander of the detachment of 1^st Dragoons (progressively composed more and more of the rebuilding Company B) accumulating at the post; Cullum, Register, #1155; National Archives, Returns from U. S. Military Posts, 1800-1916; [Fort] Leavenworth, KS; Aug 1827-Dec.1850 (Microfilm Publication M617, Roll 610), Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, Record Group 94 (Washington, D. C: National Archives, 1968) Nov. 1846-May 1847; hereafter NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns. Ohioan 2^nd Lt. Bezaleel W. Anderson graduated from the Military Academy in 1845 and been assigned to Company G, 1^st Dragoons. He had marched west on June 5 as a Brevet 2^nd Lt. and was now promoted and assigned to the 2^nd Dragoons. Like Sumner, Anderson was returning to the States with the intention of traveling on and joining his new regiment in Mexico. Cullum, Register, #1253; NARA 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Regiment, June 1846; NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns, June, 1846.

[17] Cooke, “Journal of the March of the Mormon Battalion,” entries for Oct. 19 and 23, 1846, in NARA, Letters, Army of the West. NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns, Dec.1846; Love, “Abstract of Purchases made during the Quarter ending December 31 46.” (Will Gorenfeld Personal Collection);

[18] NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns, Nov. 1846; Heitman, Register, 625. A “Brevet” was an honorary promotion rewarding valor or service. West Point graduates were initially only Brevet Second Lieutenants (as had been Armstrong); Hetzel, Military Laws, 24, 116, 155. Baker and the detachment at Fort Leavenworth never seemed to have been idle; his second letter described duties that seem like those detailed by Sergt. Percival Lowe when in similar small detachments; Five Years a Dragoon.

[19] Baker to “Dear Nephew,” Fort Leavenworth, Dec. 10, 1846. The public has generally thought poorly of enlisted regular soldiers. See for instance, Bennett (who enlisted under an alias), glad NOT to be recognized by his mother the first time he ventured on to the streets of his home town in uniform; Forts and Forays, 4. Drown thought it best not to tell any of his Chicago friends when he reenlisted, “Trumpter’s Notes,” in Rodenbough, Everglade to Canyon, 203-204. Ulysses Grant wrote in his wonderful memoir that in the summer of 1843 he returned to his parents’ home in Bethel, Ohio, as a Brevet 2^nd Lieutenant on graduation furlough. While riding out in his new uniform (hoping to impress the neighbors, particularly the young ladies) he was accosted on the street by an urchin with the chant of “Soldier! Will you work? No, sir—ee; I’ll sell my shirt first!” Personal Memoirs (New York: Random House, 1999), 18. Percival Lowe, alone, never seemed ashamed of his uniform or his service during his enlistment (nor did anything of which to be ashamed), Five Years a Dragoon. Rocky Point was most often the sight of theft and raiding by Jicarilla Apaches.s

[20] 2^nd Lt. Anderson O. Nelson to John Love, Terre Haute February 12, 1847, Will Gorenfeld Collection. Nelson would soon return to duty with his regiment, the 6^th Infantry, and be in combat by May 14, as Scott’s army fought its way to Mexico City (Cullum #1101).

[21] Indiana State Journal, February 8, 1847.

[22] Wm. Hugh Robarts, Mexican War Veterans: A Complete Roster (Washington, D. C.: Brentano’s, 1887) 47-50. Letter of (Pvts.) John W. George, Jeptha Powell, and George W. Gibson to “Liet [Love] Dear Sir,” from Newport Barracks, April 2, 1847, in John Love Papers, 1837–1886, Collection #M 0653 OM 0320, William Henry Smith Memorial Library, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis; hereafter John Love Papers, Indiana Historical Society. Will Gorenfeld wishes to express his thanks to Mrs. Betsy Caldwell for access to this and related documents. Lt. Love did not regard the letter as a slight to his rank and station. In June of 1847, he promoted George Gibson, one of the signatories, to the rank of corporal. All three of these men would serve honorably in Company B.

[23] Such accelerated and abbreviated training was typical in the army, particularly during the Mexican War. The Missouri volunteers who had marched with Kearny in June 1846 had less than two weeks between muster and departure for New Mexico, some units, less than a week—Murphy’s Platte County Volunteer Infantry Company actually marched for New Mexico two days after mustering into service. Missouri Secretary of State, On-Line Archives, Soldiers’ Records (for muster dates); Barry, Beginning of the West, 594-596 (for departure dates). 1^st Dragoons, Company F, reorganized on August 31, 1846, shipped out for Mexico Oct 6, 1846 (37 days); Company K reorganized August 15, 1847 and left for Mexico September 15, 1847 (31 days). Company B had thirty-six days from its reorganization (and only seven days with the forty-two man detachment at Fort Leavenworth consolidated with the St. Louis party—less desertions, of course) until its departure. NARA, Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Annual Reports, 1846, 1847. In 1849, dragoon recruit Bennett seems to have received only infantry and musician training as he began his 1849 enlistment with six months of time wasted on Governor’s Island in New York Harbor. (Bennett, Forts and Forays, 4-8). Enlisted a month earlier, Lowe went to Carlisle Barracks for two months of initial instruction under the then-Brevet Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke, proceeding to Company B before Christmas 1849; Lowe. Five Years a Dragoon, 5-11.

[24] Jenkins to “Dear Love,” March 20, 1847, from Jefferson Barracks; Will Gorenfeld Personal Collection; 2^nd Lt. Leonidas Jenkins, 1^st Dragoons, had been on recruiting duty at Jefferson Barracks and nearby St. Louis since Oct. 1845. He had graduated from USMA 1841 and been with the 1^st Dragoons since then. Jenkins would soon reorganize Company K at Jefferson Barracks, lead it to Vera Cruz, and die there of the vomito, Oct. 18, 1847; (Cullum #1071; NARA, 1^st Dragoons Retuns, 1845-1847, Annual Report 1847; NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns , March, 1847.

[25] NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Company B, April, 1847. Stanton was serving as Regimental and Post Adjutant AND commander of the Dragoon detachment.

[26] Baker to “My Dear Boy,” Fort Leavenworth, April 28, 1847. Peel was a Bugler, not technically an NCO, but apparently quite competent. Of the twenty five recruits and their mounts marched by Jenkins from Jefferson Barracks and undergoing training at Fort Leavenworth after march 4, 1847, twelve were listed as born in “Germany.” Five more had distinctive German names (i.e. Fosbenner, Schoele, etc.) and may have been German born as well; see Gorenfeld’s “German Born Men of Company B,” on line at Musketoon.com. St. Louis, host city to Jefferson Barracks and source of many of the 1^st Dragoons’ recruits, had a substantial and growing population of German immigrants—largely military-age men. Robyn Burnett, Ken Luebbering, German settlement in Missouri: new land, old ways (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996), 20-22.

[27] NARA, Returns from U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916; Jefferson Barracks, MO; Jan. 1826-Dec. 1851 (Microfilm Publication M617, Roll 546), Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, Record Group 94 (Washington, D. C: National Archives, 1968), April and May, 1847. NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Company B, May 1847.

[28] Missouri Republican, May 11, 1847. In perspective though, such superlatives were tossed about rather carelessly.

[29] George F. Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains (New York: Harpers & Brothers: 1848), 294. Ruxton continued on to Fort Leavenworth and there came in contact with a deserter from his British regiment in Canada, the 89^th Regiment of Foot, Pvt. Thomas Crosby, a reenlisted regular of Company B. “Memoir of Lieut. G. A. F. Ruxton,” The Daguerreotype, Volume 3, 1849, 238-239; NARA Discharge papers, Crosby. While traveling through New Mexico and enjoying the hospitality of the Burgwin Dragoon Squadron in Albuquerque on December 17, 1846, Ruxton had an encounter with another deserter from the 89^thFoot, 1^st Dragoon Pvt. Henry Herbert, of Company G. Ruxton, Adventure, 186.

[30] NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns, May, 1847; Love to Adj. Gen. R. Jones, June 27, 1847, from Camp on the Arkansas, in Niles National Register 72 (1847), 343-344; hereafter Love to Jones, NNR, June 27, 1847. On June 20, 1847, Fort Leavenworth Acting Commissary of Subsistence 1^st Lt. William Prince wrote from Fort Leavenworth to his superior, Major R. B. Lee, that “the determination of the Indians” would prevent the successful transit of any unescorted trains that season. William Prince Letterbooks, 1845-48, Beinecke Rare Book and Library, Yale University, WA MSS S-551, 343-344.

[31] NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns, June 1847; see (then-Major) Clifton Wharton, on the Band playing out a departing force, in “Expedition,” in Kansas Historical Collections, Vol. XVI (1925): 272.

[32] William Y. Chalfant, Dangerous Passage: the Santa Fe Trail and the Mexican War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 165-185; Kevin Sweeney, “Thirsting for War, Hungering for Peace: Drought, Bison Migrations, and native peoples on the Southern Plains, 1845-1859,” Journal of the West, Vol. 41,

No. 2 (Summer 2002): 70-78. Lt. Col. William Gilpin to Adj. Gen. R. Jones, August 1, 1848, from Fort Mann, in Congressional Set 537, Report of the Secretary of War, Executive Document No. 1, 30th Congress, 2nd Session, 1848, 136-140; hereafter Congressional Set 537, Operations of the Army of the West. The earlier Prince letter (supra, Fn 30) and that of March 3, 1847 from Adj. Gen. Jones to Missouri Governor Edwards (Niles National Register72 (1847), 206 make clear that the danger to transportation trains from Native raiding along the Santa Fe Trail during 1847was understood by the military and that all trains were intended to be escorted between Council Grove and Las Vegas, New Mexico.

[33] Will Gorenfeld and George R. Stammerjohan., “Love’s Defeat: Dragoons vs. Comanches,” Wild West, v.17, no.1 (June 2004), 38-45. Baker to “My Dear Nephew,” Council Grove, June 14, 1847.

[34] Ibid.

[35] LeRoy R. Hafen, Broken Hand: The Life of Thomas Fitzpatrick, Mountain Man, Guide and Indian Agent (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: 1981) 245-246; Thomas Fitzpatrick to Thomas H. Harvey (Superintendent Indians Affairs, St. Louis), Sept. 18, 1847, Bend’s Ford [sic, Bent’s Fort], in Congressional Set 503, Appendix to the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Executive Document No. 8, 30^th Congress, 1st Session, 1847, 238-240.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Baker to “My dear Nephew,” Arkansas River, June 27 1847.

[39]Ibid. Love himself called attention to the courage and sacrifice of his men and called for better planning and logistics to prevent recurrences of what became known as “Love’s Defeat.” Love to Jones, NNR, June 27, 1847. Sgt. Ben Bishop, leader of the badly mauled detachment, paid tribute to Lt. Love. Like Fitzpatrick, Bishop insisted that Love had acted “prudently and wisely;” see Bishop’s July 1, 1847 letter from “Camp Battleground” reprinted in James Madison Cutts, The Conquest of California and New Mexico by the forces of the United States in the Years 1846 &1847 (Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1847), 240-243.

[40] NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Company B and Regiment, August 1847; Santa Fe Republican, September 10, 1847; 1^st Lt. A. B. Dyer wrote that all of the replacement volunteer regiments and battalions had arrived in Santa Fe by Sept. 6, 1847, though Company B, 1^st Dragoons, was clearly the first new unit to arrive in 1847. A. B. Dyer, typescript Mexican War Diary, entry for September 6, 1847, in Alexander Brydie Dyer Papers, Collection AC 070-P, Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, Santa Fe, NM; hereafter Dyer Diary, Chavez Library.

[41] John Love Papers, IHS: “Received Santa Fe New Mexico, August 16, 1847, of Lieutenant John Love… Wm. McKissack, Capt., AQM,” with a list of turned in items, and (same source) “Invoice of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores… August, 1848;” NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1845-1847, Company B and Regiment, Sept. -Dec. 1847; Dyer Diary, Chavez Library, Dec. 2-19, 1847.

[42]NARA, Returns From U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916, Albuquerque, NM: Oct 1846-July 1867 (Microfilm M617 Roll 13), Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780′s-1917, Record Group 94, (Washington, D.C: National Archives, 1968), Nov. 1847; Lt. Col. Clifton Wharton, directly commissioned as a 2^nd Lt. in 1818, became a Captain of the original Dragoons in 1833. He was serving as Acting Commander of the 1^st Dragoons and Post Commander of Fort Leavenworth in 1847 (Heitman, Register, 686; NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns, 1847. Dyer Journal, Dec. 9, 1847; NARA, Orders, AOW, Record of General Court Martial, Albuquerque, Dec. 24-28, (Report, Santa Fe, Jan. 1, 1848).

[43]NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1848-1850, Company B, Jan. and Feb., 1848; Lt. Col. R. H. Lane from El Paso, to 1^st Lt. W. E. Prince, Jan 30, 1848 , in Missouri Republican, May 2, 1848. Shepard, Autobiography of Elihu H. Shepard (St. Louis: George Knapp & Co., 1869), describes the extremely challenging crossing of Easton’s Infantry and Walker’s Santa Fe battalions on the evening of Feb. 6, 1848. The Rio Grande was likely to have still been in flood when Love crossed, 151-154. Unsigned (author “our correspondent,” Pvt. Philip Gooch Ferguson) letter of April 6, 1848 from Chihuahua, in Missouri Republican, May 15, 1848;

[44] Missouri Republican, May 2, 1848; (St. Louis) Deutsche Tribüne, June 7, 1848, letter of March 20, 1848, from Santa Cruz de Rosales, signed “Der Rekrut von Santa Cruz” (probably Orderly Sergt. Herman Weber); Brig. Gen. Sterling Price to Adj. Gen. Jones, from Chihuahua, March 31, 1848, Congressional Set 537, Operations of the Army of the West, 113-119.

[45]Report of 1^st Lt. John Love, March 22, 1844, 124-126; Report of Major B. L. Beall, March 23, 1848, 122-124; both in Congressional Set 537, Operations of the Army of the West.

[46] Deutsche Tribüne, June 7, 1848; Shepard, Autobiography, 170-174; Dyer Diary, Chavez Library, March 16-July 18, 1848; NARA, 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1848-1850, Company B and Regiment, March-August 1848. Considering this the end of their Mexican War era journeys, the cadre of Company B had completed marches totaling over 5,036 overland miles since leaving Fort Atkinson at the beginning of the war (not counting the additional 670 steamboat miles); Love, Muller, and others had actually covered more in their 1846-1847 recruiting journey and return.

[47] NARA, 1^st Dragoons Returns, 1848-1850, Company B and Regiment, Oct. and Nov. 1848.

[48] Ibid, Company B and Regimental Returns, Dec. 1848 through May, 1849, NARA, Fort Leavenworth Returns, January 1849.

[49] NARA 1^st Dragoon Returns, 1848-1850, Regiment, June, 1849; Death Notice, Boston Evening Transcript, June 29, 1849. Thanks to John Maurath for contributing this and for his wonderful tour and perspective on Jefferson Barracks, which he and his friends are actively preserving and promoting.

[50]Ebenezer T. Carr, “Addenda,” in Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, Volume 12 (1912), xv-xvi, described the 1861 removal of all bodies from every distinguishable grave in Fort Leavenworth’s “old soldiers burying ground,” including any associated markers. No record of Baker’s grave remained; confirm, http://www.interment.net/data/us/ks/leavenworth/fortleavnat/index_aaal.htm, and telephone conversation with Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery staff member, Sept. 24, 2009.

George Henneberg: Immigrant Bugler and Deserter

Will Gorenfeld — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:34:26 +0000

Kearny to Adj. Gen. Jones, January 27, 1839, Letter Book 410

Sir

By the last mail received your instruction of the 8^th Inst. to send George Henneburg one of the Principal Musicians of the 2d Dragoons, to Jefferson Barracks that he may be sent over there to join his Regiment in Florida, & for the information of the Com. in Chief I sent to you his history as I understand it.

In June 1836 Henneberg with his family (a wife & 3 children) arrived in the U.S. from Germany. In November (in five months after his arrival) he was enlisted in Baltimore by Capt. Winder, 2d Dragoons. He, not understanding our language was (as he says) promised by the Capt. [through a doctor Hantz?] (who acted as an Interpreter and who he thinks was the Examining Surgeon) that he should not be sent to Florida , but to Jefferson Barracks to serve there during his enlistment as instructor to both bands. He was sent there; [unintelligible] with his Reg’t., having his family with him; and when it left there in Sep’t ’34 for Florida, he started with it, but on arriving at Shawneetown on the 15^th of that month, considering the promise made to him at his enlistment had not been fulfilled, he deserted, went to New Orleans where his family with the Baggage of the Re’t had been sent. He returned with them to Jefferson Barracks, and on the 11^th Dec. delivered himself up to Brig. Gen’l Atkinson (without expenses to the U.S.) who in October ’38 sent him under Capt. Perkins to this Post to serve with the 1^st Drags. ‘til further orders.

On my return to the Reg’t in December I found him here & assigned him to Co. “B” as a Bugler, as I reported to you in my letter of the 11^th of that month. He is now in that Company having with him his wife , two young children and daily expecting another.

This man appears to me like a very respectable German and still understands our language very imperfectly. As I have been thus particular about his family, that the Comd. In Chief may himself judge, & I have no doubt he would agree with me, in crediting his story, that he was deceived in his enlistment when promised that he was to serve at Jefferson Barracks, & not to be sent to Florida where he is most unwilling to go, as it would separate him from those far removed as from the native Homes and dependent upon him. I have now to recommend that he be transferred from the 2^nd to the 1^st Dragoons, in Exchange for one of the many men that Regt had received the letters. I will detain him here ‘till the decision of the Comd. in Chief is received in reply to this communication.

Bugler George Henneberg re-enlisted in Company F on 16 July 1846. Lt. Phil Kearny, the recruiting officer promised to keep Henneberg with his family. The movement of Co. F to San Antonio, Texas and the replacement of the easy going Capt. Philip Thompson with the wild eyed Lt. Kearny, resulted, on 14 September 1846, of Henneberg’s 2d desertion. This time, having his fill of broken promises, he did not return,

Beall’s 1849 Expedition

Will Gorenfeld — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:26:01 +0000

Maj. Ben Beall to Lt. John Dickerson, 2d Arty., AAAG, Head Quarters, 9^th Military Dist.

Don Fernando de Taos, NM, March 12, 1849

Sir,

Agreeably to a letter of instructions from Head Quarters 9^th Mily Department, dated 27^th January 1849, directing me to “proceed as soon as possible to the country inhabited by the Kiowa Indians” for the purpose of releasing “a number of prisoners in their possession who have been captured in New Mexico,” I have the honor to submit the following report.

On the morning of the 10^th ultimo I left Taos with Company I 1^st Dragoons under the command of 1^st Lieut Whittlesey accompanied by 2d Lieut. J. H. Adams 1^st Dragoons acting adjt to the Detachment, and asst. Surgeon H. R. Wirtz. I crossed the mountains of the “Rio de la Mora” by different passes and through deep snow and reaching the Prairie on the eastern side I was joined Lieut. A. Pleasanton in command of Co. H, 2d Dragoons, on the 14^th. I then took the most direct route to the Arkansas River and camped on the “Rio Lempa” on the 22d being then within thirty miles of Bent’s Fort.

It appears that news had reached Bents Fort from the “Green Horn” that a military force was en route to the Kiowa Nation to liberate the Mexican prisoners in their possession and accordingly on the evening of that day I received a letter by express from the Fort from the U. States Indian Agent for the Upper Platte and Arkansas (Mr. Fitzpatrick) and also one from an influential resident at the Pueblo. The purpose of these letters was as follows—That the Indians in the vicinity of the post were at present exceedingly civil, but that if forcible measures were resorted to in order to liberate the prisoners in the hands of the Kiowas, the lives and property of the Americans residing in that portion of the country would be in the most imminent danger if they were not absolutely compelled to leave the settlements at the sacrifice of all they possessed. The Indian Agent, therefore, requested that I come on to Bents Fort in advance of my command in order that we might confer together about the feasibility of the expedition. On the following morning, I marched to the Arkansas, and early the next day reaching the Fort encamping my command on the South bank of the Arkansas river.

By the letter of instruction to me directed, I understand that every possible measure was to be adopted in order to secure the liberation of the captives in the hands of the Kiowa Indians, but that if they could not be obtained “peaceably” they must be obtained “otherwise.”

I was convinced by the opinion of every person on the Arkansas who was acquainted with Indian affairs that to obtain the Mexican captives by peaceable means was a thing impossible and great stress being laid in the above mentioned letter of instruction upon the desirability of a continuance of the friendly relations between the Kiowas and Whites I was in doubt how to act.

On arriving at the Fort I learned from the U. States Indian Agent that the greater part of the Kiowa nation was absent on a great hunt with the Comanches and that but a few lodges were at that time on the Arkansas River. The majority of the prisoners I also understood were with the absent party.

The expediency of an attack upon the few Kiowas who were then on the Arkansas (for I was convinced they would not release their captives without a fight) and the chance of losing thereby those persons who were with the remainder of the nation, thus defeating in a measure the object of the expedition, induced me to call a council of my officers, and I now present for the consideration of the comg officer of the 9^th Mily Department my reasons for acting as I have done, and the conclusion which I have adopted.

1^st In the first place I thought it best to learn the disposition of the Kiowas in regard to their prisoners, and I obtained the following information—the majority of the captives are women who are married to Indians and have by their numerous children. This portion is perfectly satisfied, with but a few exceptions, to remain, and even if offered their “liberty” would doubtfully refuse to leave a nation with which they have so many ties. The male portion of the captives have become perfectly barbarianised, and in their mode of life and custom have affiliated themselves more or less completely with their captors. These individuals if liberated would be totally unfitted for and made miserable by the usages of civilized life. The Indians themselves are much attached to their prisoners from affection or cupidity and would fight for them with as much tenacity as for their own people. I therefore saw that the Kiowa would must certainly give us battle rather than give up a portion of their own nation as it were into our hand.

2dly The feasibility and expectancy of successfully resorting to forcible measures was there to be considered. (1) The great map of the Kiowa nation was absent. The majority of the prisoners was with them. To attack those who were in camp on the Arkansas was no easy matter. Here was a Kiowa lodge, there Arapahoe lodge; here again a Kiowa lodge — there a Cheyenne lodge, for about fifteen miles along the river bank, indeed so interrupted and scattered were they that in a sudden attack upon the Kiowas, many Indians of other tribes would have been there fired, and many Kiowas would have escaped. To tell them the object of the expedition, to order them to separate themselves and fight us, would have been the extreme of folly, inasmuch as if they did present a bold front, the prisoners would certainly be run off or if there was no chance to effect this they would massacre them rather than let them fall into our hands. (2) Even supposing it to have been reasonable to have obtained every prisoner there from the Arkansas, all hope would have been lost of our regaining by forcible means the remainder and the majority. In the inaccessible vastness of the mountains and in the wide spread plains of the Indian country they would have hidden them from us most probably successfully. (3) Again — several Comanche chiefs have lately arrived at this post suing for peace. Now the Comanches have more prisoners than any other tribe of the Plains, and as a peace with the Comanches was considered a desireable object by the U. States Indian Agent, and as a statement of the object of my expedition would most certainly have interrupted such arrangements by informing them that the United States intended to take all prisoners from the Indians forcibly and not purchased them as has always been done heretofore I give to this consideration also its proper weight. (4) There was still another consideration of great importance, namely defenseless condition of the American citizen on the Arkansas, far away from the new Mexican settlements, exposed to the cruelty of outraged savages and unable by their number or strength to stand such odds. The effect of a fight with the Kiowa would have certainly have broken up the prospect of civilization along the course of the Arkansas and the valley of the “greenhorn.”

Under these adverse circumstances I concluded according to the best of my judgment that it would be to the interest of the service and the general Government to delay forcible measures until I could lay the state of the case before the army officer of the 9^th mily and Department and at the same time to avail myself of every piece of useful information I could collect for their action.

That the expedition might not be unproductive of useful results, and there being present at the fort several principal Chiefs of the different tribes, I concluded to call them together in Council and give them some advice and information with regard to the present State of New Mexico, Texas and the Plains carefully advising in conformity with my conclusions herein stated, any mention of the Mexican Prisoners in the hands of the Kiowas.

Leaving Bents Fort on the 2d inst, I directed my course up the Arkansas, ordering Lieut. Pleasanton with his command to return to Santa Fe via the Mora intending myself to reach this post with Company I, 1^st Dragoons via “Sierra Blanca” leaving the Spanish peaks on my left.

The passage of this mountain was very difficult. The snow in many places ten or fifteen feet deep, and was only by the most untiring exertion on the part of the command in beating down the drifting snow that a track was formed. The command reached this Post on the 9^th inst.

Subjoined are the minutes of the council, and two letters from the U. States Indian Agent, and one from a citizen of the Pueblo.

I am very respectfully your obt. Servt.,

B.L. Beall, Major, 1^st Dragoons Comy

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Thomas Fitzpatrick to Beall

Bents Fort, February 2, 1849

Sir

Being at the Puebla a few days ago on my way to the Katty [?] I learned that you were en route for this place, and being apprehensive that some difficulty might arise out of your mission I thought it best to return and be present. There are great numbers of Indians in this vicinity at present all of which are exceedingly civil, but should you be obliged to resort to harsh measures in regard to the Mexican prisoners I doubt much whether they will remain civil longer than your presence will keep them in awe. Such a state of things, you are aware will leave many American citizens in a very dangerous situation in this country. But I hope that your judicious management in the matter will not leave the least appearance of danger behind. Your arrival here at this time is very opportune for more reasons than one, as four Comanche Chiefs suing for peace have just arrived.

You may rely implicitly on my cooperation with you and would be glad if you could arrive here in advance of your command in order that we might confer together on the whole subject.

Thos. Fitzpatrick

I have just arrived last night late in haste.

Thomas Fitzpatrick to Beall

Bents Fort, February 24, 1849

Sir, For the purpose of fulfilling, and carrying out the 4^th article of the late treaty between the United States and Mexico (which obligates the United States to liberate and restore to Mexico all persons in possession of Indians residing within the territories of the United States), being the object of your visit here at present, with your command. I hope you will not consider me presuming too much if I take the opportunity of submitting my opinion and views on a matter which so deeply interests the general government, as well as many American citizens whose business leads them into this remote and unprotected region.

I am not aware, nor do I make pretentions of possessing any power or authority whatever that could give one a right to interfere in the smallest degree with the performance of your duty or instructions. On the contrary I feel bound by duty as well as inclination to cooperate with and aid you to the utmost of my abilities, and inasmuch as I consider myself acquainted with the disposition, manners, customs, habits and prospects of the Indian tribes of this country, as well as the situations of the whites thereby, I respectfully lay before you the following statement in order that you may thus more readily decide on the most proper course to pursue.

There is immediately in the vicinity of this place at the present time, a portion of several tribes—Cheyenne’s, Kiowas, Aripahoes [sic], Apache, and a delegation of Comanche Chiefs now in this fort who have first arrived and are immediately suing for peace with the American people. Of all these tribes, the Kiowas are the only tribe who have prisoners amongst them, and I am quite certain that they will never surrender them without ransom of by force of arms, which if resorted to will not only cause the death of some of the prisoners, but will drive them once more into an inveterate state of hostility against us. What is meant by force of arms causing the deaths of a part of the prisoners is that, whenever the Indians are attacked on their account, those having any in possession will immediately will put all those to death whom they suppose have any inclination to leave them. A similar effect with a like policy will be produced on the Comanche, who have, perhaps more Mexican prisoners than all the others put together, and are now, as before observed, within this fort seeking the “olive branches”. But the greatest difficulty which I perceive you are likely to meet with in the accomplishment of the object of the present campaign is that the Indians are so scattered and interspersed, that in making an attack on any encampment you will liable to injure necessarily olf each of the above tribes and thereby embroil yourself with the whole.

In bringing to you notice all of the foregoing considerations you will perceive that I have said little or nothing in regard to the very dangerous, and precarious situation which such a state of affairs as I have referred to, would place many American citizens pursuing a lawful and laudably, and laudable business in this country. But the many disasters and misfortunes which American citizens have been subjected to in this country, are well known, yet up to this moment there has never been the slightest effort made towards their protection, or redress for wrongs.

The foregoing is but a brief and hasty writing of what is likely may arise out of any attempt to obtain the Mexican prisoners by force of arms. Indeed, the whole matter seems to be so different from the first and various usages of the United States government towards the red man, that I can with difficulty, and only because coming from so respectable source, realize or believe the fact. It is well known that any thing taken in war by Indians, according to their notions is of more value than any other sort of property, inasmuch as it becomes a portion of the history and fame of the warrior.

When I first became acquainted with the article of the treaty which is the subject of this letter I at once came to the conclusion that congress as soon as practicably devise and means for its fulfillment, by appointing commissioners, or agents to treat with the friendly tribes and thereby accomplish the object amicably. I wish to be understood as having no objection whatever to any thing or course you may see proper to pursue. I only beg to be allowed to say that this is not the proper season of the year to accomplish this object in view, over winter, is your command sufficiently strong in case of a union of the bands now almost together, as it were in one camp on the river.

What is a Dragoon?

Will Gorenfeld — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:36:26 +0000

If the antiquated term dragoon manages to appear in current literature, it may conjure, to some, images of antiquated mounted troops, fighting in antediluvian European wars of a forgotten past; to others, the forcing of somebody to do something he doesn’t want to do.

The word has its origin on the fields of battles fought five hundred years ago. Mounted warriors using missile weapons, such as bows, have their roots in ancient times. Soon after the introduction of firearms in the 15^th Century, there appeared mounted sharpshooters who discarded their traditional mounted weapons of sabre, bow or lace and chose to fight with the arquebus, were dominated arquebusiers a cheval. [i] The term “Dragoon” came into popular use during the European wars of the 16^th Century to describe this hybrid military formation, mounted on horse who rode to where they were needed on a battlefield, dismounted, and fought on foot with their firearms. Because they were well mounted and armed with longarms, these soldiers could often reach an important location or cover a retreat than faster foot soldiers. In this capacity, dragoons came to represent an amalgam of infantry and cavalry. Their short-barreled muskets sometimes featured a dragon–shaped side plate. Comparing these swift-moving troops, who used fire-spitting weapons, to dragons of fable, the Count of Mansfeldt fashioned the name “Dragonieres”, shortened to “Dragoons” to describe them.[ii] Armies soon equipped dragoons with sabres in addition to firearms and put them to use as shock troops.[iii]

The Napoleonic era brought with it revolutionary changes in the use of dragoons. Cavalry, armed with sabre and pistol, had long did their fighting in the saddle. Most European armies came to the realization that all mounted soldiers should remain in the saddle and not be trained to fight dismounted. Enlightened generals came to realize swords and spurs encumbered a soldier attempting to fight on foot; there was a need to protect the horses when fighting dismounted and this necessarily reduced the size of the force; and the training recruits to perform double duty of fighting mounted as well on foot is time consuming.[iv] The infant military of the United States balked the trend of European armies. Until mounted forces were fully mechanized in 1941, they used their horses to ride to where they were needed, and then did most of their fighting on foot.

There was a time in our nation’s early history that dragoons formed a important part of the army. Trooper James Hildreth wrote in 1836, “The regiment of the United States dragoons forms, although a small, yet conspicuous portion of the American army.”[v] Then, in August of 1861, the War Department, caught in the grip of the Civil War, merged the nation’s two dragoon regiments with its two cavalry and a mounted rifle regiment, added a new cavalry regiment, forming a corps of six regiments of cavalry. The First Dragoons became the First Cavalry and the term dragoon, henceforth, disappeared as a designation of regular army formations. With these steps, the appellation dragoon, in effect. disappeared from the name of federal military formations, but from everyday speech.

[i] V. Vuksic and Z. Grbasic, Cavalry: The History of a Fighting Elite 650 BC – AD1914 (London: Cassell 1993) 25-26; Louis Nolan, Cavalry: Its History and Tactics (Originally printed 1854, reprinted Yardley: Westholme 2007) 39.

[ii] Nolan, Cavalry, 39; Peter Schmidt: Hall’s Military Breechloaders (Lincoln: Andrew Mowbray, 1996) 57; Theophilus Rodenbough. From Everglade to Canyon with the Second United States Cavalry: An Authentic Account of Service in Florida, Mexico, Virginia and the Indian Country, 1836-1875 (Reprinted Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 2000) 8.

[iii] Nolan, Cavalry, 38. The American army later added a light howitzer to the dragoon’s arsenal, allowing this versatile corps to encompass all three combat arms: horse, foot, and artillery. John Elting, A Dictionary of Soldier Talk (New York: The Scribner Press 1984) 90

[iv] Nolan, Cavalry, 39.

[v] James Hildeth is the putative name most historians have given to the anonymous author of Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains: Being a History of Enlistment, Organization, and First Campaigns of the Regiment of United States Dragoons; Together with the Incidents of a Soldier’s Life and Sketches of Scenery and Indian Character (New York: Wiley & Long, 1836). 111. One writer expresses doubt that Hildreth, having due to a physical disability to have left the service prior to the expedition depicted in the book, was not the author. (Joseph B. Thoburn, “Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Mountains” Chronicle of Oklahoma, Vol. 8, 1930, 35.

A Gold Rush Officer’s Card Game Feud

Will Gorenfeld — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:44:12 +0000

Born and reared in Tennessee, Lt. Cave Couts frequently placed personal integrity above all else and a willingness to chastise those opponents threatening his honor. This became evident after an army officer, Major Justus McKinstry, verbally maligned Couts’ new-found novia, Ysidora Bandini. Incensed, Couts sent Lieutenant George Evans, with a note challenging McKinstry to a fight. Declining the summons, McKinstry chose instead to thrash it out with Evans in Old Town Plaza of San Diego , much to the ire of Couts.

McKinstry and Evans were court martialed for their actions. McKinstry suffered “three months suspension of rank, pay and involvements and to be reprimanded by the General Command.” (Letter from Cave Couts to William Emory, January 1, 1851, contemporary copy, San Diego Historical Society, Couts Letter File.) Other primary and secondary sources for the Couts-McKinstry feud include: a letter published in the Missouri Republican, December 1, 1849, p. 2; William H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, 1803-1863 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 161; and Grant Foreman, Marcy and The Gold Seekers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939), pp. 320-321.

The McKinstry-Couts feud seems to go back to a bad debt. In the course of an 1849 card game, McKinstry borrowed seven hundred dollars from Couts of which he would only repay four hundred. As Couts later stated: “… being in want of the money I sent a polite note requesting the difference between us. It was denied me.” Letter from Cave Couts to Thomas Sidney Jesup, Statement Against Justus McKinstry, September 10, 1849, Cave Couts Collection, Huntington Library.

In subsequent years McKinstry’s behavior showed little improvement. After a scandal involving fraudulent administration of his command, he was court-martialed from the army on January 28, 1863, for “neglect and violation of duty, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.” Thomas W. Sweeney, The Journal of Lt. Thomas W. Sweeney, 1849-1853, ed. by Arthur Woodward (Los Angeles: The Westernlore Press, 1956), p. 260.)

San Luis Rey, Califa

March 1, 1851

Dear [Lt. John] Love,

I recd. your note of 7th Dec. by last steamer. Why did you not tell us something more of the New Regiments? We expect it to be a ten strike for us and of course are materially interested. Also more of our dear regiment? For we are as ignorant of Regimental affairs out here, as though we were in Egypt.

I returned from San Francisco about the middle of the past month, where I had been standing charges prefr. by Bvt. MaJor J. McKinstry, A.Q.M. He resorted to this in consequence of a private difficulty, notified the Judge Advocate that he should put in the presentation of the charges, and here is the findings of the court after find an honorable acquittal): viz

“The court cannot refrain from an expression of decided disapproval of the court which Major McKinstry, the accuser in the case, has thought proper to pursue. His utter failure to prove the charges and specifications, and the circumstances of the case as spread upon the record, constrain the court to believe that these charges have proceeded more from personal ill will, than from a regard to the interest of the public service.”

“The court therefore deems it their duty to make a Public expression of the disapprobation of the course pursued by the accuser, Major McKinstry.”

I mention this because I have understood some 12 or 18 months since he published a letter in a N. Orleans paper (the “Crescent”) where both myself and Evans were placed in an unfavorable light. I have now been able to see this; it resulted from his having found proof upon all gentlemen in the vicinity, that he was a coward & liar and unworthy of their farther attention or intercourse.

I did not have an opportunity of going to Benicia to see Kearny & he was, and had been there sick for some time. Saw Stoneman, who is very well and making a pile of money.

In the event of the “New Regiment” being organized, and a complete Regt. of Dragoons sent to Califa, what say you to making an effort to get all of the 1st out? With a whole Regt here, at least Seven Comp[anies] would be constantly at head quart[ers]: and we would have an infinitely better time on the whole, than any where on the old frontier. In such an event, but little effort on the part of some of our Sr. officers, would accomplish the matter, and one would have the whole Regt., to all purposes together. All who have been to Califa. Would undoubtedly find this strongly. Kind Regards to all friends,

I am, very truly,

Cave Couts

[p.s.] The Maj. [Benjamin Beall?] desires to be remembered.
Present my regards particularly to Col. F[auntleroy] & his family

Old Four O’Clock: Sumner Takes Command of the Mounted Rifles

Tim Kimball — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:18:50 +0000

Armstrong to Love: Letter from Brazos Santiago, 1847.

(A special guest contribution)

This breezy communication was written by 2nd Lt. Bezaleel Armstrong, USMA 1845. He had recently returned from the occupation of New Mexico with a small party of 1st Dragoons, arriving at Fort Leavenworth on November 20, 1846. Armstrong was one of several young officers transferred due to promotions. The Dragoon return party was led by Major Edwin Vose Sumner, finally promoted himself after thirteen years as a captain. Armstrong’s letter was intended for his friend and recent traveling companion, 1st Lt. John Love, now in Dayton, Ohio, and assigned to recruit Compy B, 1st Dragoons full (broken up on order from Kearny and its privates distributed among Compys G & I, remaining in New Mexico).

Describing his own travels, reflecting on Major General Scott and the state of sea transportation, Armstrong also discussed the Sumner’s assignment by Commanding General Winfield Scott as Acting Commander of the new regular army Regiment of Mounted Rifles, in apparent preference over the amateurs assigned to its field grade ranks. Sumner, formally a Major of the 2nd Dragoons, would train, command, and lead the Regiment of Mounted Rifles to Mexico City, winning Brevets of Lieutenant Colonel at Cerro Gordo and Colonel at Churubusco.

Armstrong never fully recovered his health, surviving the war only to die at home in Ohio, “a skeleton,” February 15, 1849.

Brazos Island, Texas
January 15, 1847

Dear John:
Here I am on a sand bank without money, without a horse, a fairly considerably bad case of C…–entirely disgusted & anxious to get along from the “Greenwood” without being able to do it, on account of the wind blowing, the breakers running, and sand flying.
When I left you in Saint Louis, we got along very well on our way to New Orleans, until we got into the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio, when I (unlucky devil that I am) was taken with the Dysentery and came near going to Davy Jones before my time—we got into N. Orleans and there the Doctors took charge of me and after about ten days they put me on my legs again. I then commenced to look about me, for a vessel to goBrazos [Brazos Santiago, the transshipment point for Taylor’s Army]. The doctor advised me not to go in the first vessel that left as I had not yet so far recovered as to [be] able to stand salt water to drink. So I waited until the Alabama went out, but in the mean time the great “Mogul,” Gen. [Winfield] Scott came and took all room there was on Board for horses. So I refused to go without my horse and waited until the Steamer [McKino?] was ready to go, but I was in no great hurry and she was considered rather a poor sea vessel so I waited a day or two for the next vessel, which was the “[Marcia Burt?]” the evening she was to go. I sent my horse on her, together with Major [Cary, former 2nd Lt., 3rd U.S. Inf.] Fry’s of Ky. Vol. (a cousin of Miss Gaphney’s [sic, Ellen Gwathmey]) and his nigger, but as she had no sails and we came to the conclusion that we could send our horses ahead and wait for the Massachusetts, we did so and arrived here days ago, but the Marcia Burt is not here, and nothing has been heard of her, so that my horse has gone in search of shells at the bottom of the gulf—at least every one here has given her up as she has been out about fifteen days.
So I am broke as I stayed in New Orleans about twenty eight days, at an expense of at least $5 per day, but the hardest lick is that I have lost my horse, and he cannot be replaced in this country. Nearly all the horses of the Rifle Regiment have been lost in the gulf during the last gales. When we arrived in New Orleans, the rifles were running wild, and their Major [William Loring] confined to his room by sickness. So soon as Genl Scott arrived in New Orleans he assigned old “4 O’clock” [Major Sumner] to the command of the rifle Regiment, and he is now encamped at the mouth of the Rio Grande in command of the Rifle Regmt, 80 recruits of the 2nd Dragoons, about 200 of the 4th Infy, and a company of artillery.
I am ordered to the mouth to take charge of the recruits for my Regmt [2nd Drags] as they are now under a Bvt 2nd. So I cannot tell when I will reach Genl [Zachary] Taylor. Genl Scott & staff are here and will remain for about ten days, [who knows?] where they are going after that I cannot tell and “Tom Williams” [won’t?]. The fact the great “Captain” is very Mysterious, we have heard nothing from the Army as yet no battles has been fought as was expected.
Since I have been here we have heard that a detachment of the 2nd Drags has been attacked and six men killed, the Lieut in command has been arrested (so report says). It is supposed [1st Lt. Reuben] Campbell was the officer. I do not know the particulars. I hope you will recruit soon and come on. The Mexicans say they will have all [1st Lt. Phillip, Compy F, 1st Dragoons] PKearny’s horses before a month. Give my love to Buckeye Gals and write me to mention how you are getting along.

Yours truly,

[2nd Lt. Bezaleel] Armstrong. [2nd Dragoons]

Gossip from Ft. Leavenworth 1845 & 1846

Will Gorenfeld — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:23:32 +0000

McLean to Love

Fort Leavenworth Mo.

Nov 26^th 1845

Dear John

Had you not said in your first letter, that you would write to me on arriving at Dayton, I suppose I would be obliged to commence this with an apology; but as you were so rash as to give one that piece of information be it on your own bead.

You give a charming picture, truly, of the delights and charms of that famous city; what with tableaux, balls, parties and distinguished consideration I suspect the gallant Captain has changed in so remarkable a degree, that Leavenworth would stand mute with astonished admiration, should any circumstance place him suddenly in the midst of it. But I am glad to see that in all your gaiety and amusements you do not forget those who are sadly doomed to a winter of dull and insipid monotony. You have made a happy escape I do assume (Barring Miss Joe, of course) for if a man here should laugh heartily, no, all would be astonished, so uncommon a thing has it become. Each one seems to be impressed with the conviction that something dreadful is before him and that all he can do, is to brace himself up against it as well as he can, and bear it with as much fortitude as he can muster. The Major has lately introduced an improvement, which perhaps will give a little variety to a few of the subs, and prevent them from positively dying outright with ennui, for he has taken the important step of ordering an officer of the guard, and it only waiting to have the room fixed to keep the young gentlemen from catching cold. Poor subs! Don’t you pity them? I do really and truly! Only think how sad a change it would be from Captain Love, commander of all the military forces of Dayton, favorite of the ladies, associate of Mrs Sink, the tableaux vivaux, in fine the observed of all observers, to “Mr. Love you will visit the sentinels every hour, and see that they perform their duty, you have leave the guard house to go to your meals but on no other account except on duty” Throw back your head dear Captain and pity the poor subs—think of that lonely room, when you are in the midst of a brilliant coterie, think of that supperless belly when your are enjoying your [game?] supper, think of those heavy disconsolate eyelids when your only [illegible] is that you have to return. Oh John you are really a happy dog!

So you think your polka investment is a bad speculation. By the way, have you and Jack [1^st Infantry Second Lieutenant John] Terrett settled the pointed of that dispute yet? Or do you both affirm and stick to it that the other is wrong. I had a good laugh at that. [AQM, First Lieutenant William M. D “Issac”] McKissack puts it in his best style; giving to the whole scene the most graphic effect. But speaking of speculations, the richest I have known or heard of for some time in one I made myself and three weeks since, I bought a filly, and such a filly! Your old [Sen?] would have big [delight?] to have looked upon her, a head so small, an eye so big, a neck so beautiful and limbs so perfectly graceful few such have been seen at the old fort. Well John I loved it at first sight and bought it for a cool hundred, brought it here, put it in the stable, and next morning it choked to death. Beat that if you can.

Your bay does not appear to thrive some how or other, he looks rather poorly for some time but now seems to be getting better. I believe I asked Captain B. [1^st Dragoons, John H. K. Burgwin] to tell you that the leg which was wounded by the picket pin had broken out, the lower joint swelled up and finally broke; it is now running slightly, but looks as if it were getting better [it appears Love’s bay was on the Dragoon’s 1845 South Pass Expedition, which Love completed just before leaving for recruiting duty in Dayton]. I am keeping him myself, so you will know he has not been rode very hard—Sanderson has the pony and he has recovered so far from his deviltry that Mrs S. rode him over here the other day and swears she never saw his beat for a lady’s horse—Mrs Rich has a bay baby. Mrs Hammond’s [young wife of 1^st Dragoons Second Lieutenant Thomas] Shadow is beginning to increase, and Lady Foot got pups!

[1^st Dragoons Capt. Phillip St. George] Cooke did not take his horse and is still here. He sent [local attorney, recently resigned former 1^st Dragoons Second Lieutenant Charles] Ruff to attend to the business in Phil^a. I have sold all your things except the guns and horses, at the prices you left. I tried to keep back the rocking chair but the confounded plebe got his eye of that the first thing. Every thing suited him very well except the bed which he swore wouldn’t keep him warm. Nothing known about your lost horse.

Give that recruit Jessie John. Don’t let him come it over you. If you mange that recruit in good style you know not what might come of it. Hell make you a Major Genl, before your turn. Did you ever ask him how he came to enlist? Miss Joe would I expect send her love if I were to tell her that you wished to be remember to her but I believe I’ll tell her that you didn’t say anything about her—think it would have a good effect.

Rich is flourishing as usual quite as fat and jovial as he [used?] to was, hasn’t begun to dance the polka yet tho I told him your opinion of his [illegible]. Major had a party last week at which of course all the elite were present. I enjoyed myself of course. All the young ladies were there. How could 200 of them? John do you know Mrs Ruff [daughter of Indian Agent/contractor John Daugherty, wife of former Dragoon officer Charles]? If not and you are ever so unfortunate as to have to danced with her let me caution you to load yourself up to the muzzle beforehand with small talk for you’ll have use of it all—ten times worse than Mrs. H. she’s staying the winter at Cookes.

I should well like to tell you some news but there is none that would afford you five minutes amusement. I had a letter from [Topog on South Pass Expedition, Brevet Second Lieutenant William] Franklin the other day in which he says they will certain recommend a station a Fort Laramie. Perhaps if they do it will break up the recruiting depot at Dayton and let that recruit see some service. Capt. M. [Benjamin Moore, Love’s Compy Commander] wants the rest. Yours truly E. E. McLean

I raised my hands with pious horror to see the insinuations made against me in your letters to Burgwin & M [illegible] but “Mens ribs can [illegible?]” is my motto, & I defy your gross insinuations. “vox faucibus haesit” [I was dumb with amazement].

Major Wharton

McLean460912Love

Fort Leavenworth Sept. 21st 1846
Lieut John Love 1st Drags
Dear John
As an express starts out to-morrow I take advantage of it to write you a few lines of what has transpired since my last letter. Tho’ there does not appear top be any thing of any great importance yet almost any thing from here I know will be received by you with pleasure. You see in the first place that we are still here doing peace service, while our “brother warriors” are earning for themselves imperishable fame in the field; and we feel this the more deeply as we appear to be the only company so situated in the whole army; sometimes when I sit down and ponder over matters, I can hardly realize that I am here and every body else fighting, or marching to fight with hearts bounding with hopes of glory and distinction before them. All is here so peaceful and calm; the sad and solemn beauty of the scenery so little like war and its noisy accompaniments that I can scarcely bring myself to think that such a thing is going on. But luck is, nevertheless, the fact, and here are we enjoying all the comforts of a soldier’s life, while you and every one else are undergoing the hardships, fatigues and dangers—I cannot last, I feel as if we could not linger out an inglorious existence here while all our friends are in the field.

A few days ago [Richard] Ewell was here, and tried hard to be ordered out to join you; but it was no use the Lt. Col. Could not take the responsibility.—He says he feels more disgusted that we can; for we have the consolation of knowing that our company has not been ordered, whereas his is in the field, and he on recruiting service. He feels quite bad about it, and would give any thing in the world to be with you. Did you ever see any thing like the promotion your regiment has had. I’m perfectly disgusted with it I assure you. But did you know that you came very near losing two Captains more by [Pat] Trenor and [Philip] Thompson. The one by delirium tremens the other through the medium of a strike of lightning. Old Pat was very near going when he heard of his majority—he guzzled more rum than you would believe and wasn’t right either for a week or two but he’s well now and you need not calculate on him for a year or so. In think if he had another promotion to go through with, it would carry him off. His limits been extended to six miles and he now can visit Marshes as much as he pleases.

Thompson has been ordered to bring his company [F] here to remain during the winter at which no doubt he will be heartily disgusted as he was making arrangements to join General [John] Wool. Assurances have been given however by the Adjutant General that his company will be the first ordered out if troops are needed in the spring. He has from all accounts a fine company of young men raised principally by [Phil] Kearny who exerted himself in every way to fill the company, which by the way he had scarcely done before he was superseded by Thompson.

We have been engaged for the last month mustering in a regiment of Infantry for your army nine companies have been completed averaging more than 100 aggregate—a fine set of men as you ever saw; much superior I think to those already with you. Two mails ago, however, orders were received from Washington disbanding them; at which of course there was great and furious excitement. They were exceedingly anxious to get out, and if there had not been a difficulty about the election of a Colonel, four good companies would already have been many miles on the road—if started the orders were to let them go on. From all accounts however you will not need them, and as I hear provision are rather scarce in your parts you’d just as lief be without them. By the way John how do you like a hungry belly for a companion. I should think it be damned disagreeable—even if you do have silver plates.

Taylor’s army is on the march for Monterrey. Worth is in advance with his divisions where if has luck he may retrieve his former blunder. They marched from Camargo—all their baggage and so on is taken on pack mules—transportation by wagons being, it is said, impracticable. There is no news of importance further than that they have marched. We expect in the course of a week or two to learn of another battle as troops are said to be collecting beyond Monterrey. The health of the regulars is good but there has been much sickness amongst the volunteers and a great deal of mortality.

On the day that our orders came here for the disbanding of the Infantry regiment [3d Missouri Infantry] there was another sad occurrence took place here. A sentinel (a volunteer) at the Magazine had a prisoner placed in his charge by the officer of the guard while he went to get a file of men to take him to the guard house. The officer had gone a hundred yards—the prisoner escaped from the sentinel who cried out to him repeatedly to stop or he would fire. He wouldn’t stop and the sentry fired. Down came the man—dead as Adam. The company to which he belonged then rushed our in mass with a Sergeant at their head crying hang him hang him, and was only prevented from doing violence to the sentinel by the officer of the day Capt. McNair (a bold and daring fellow) rushing out in the from of them drawing his sword and threatening to run the first of them through who advanced. After a good deal of difficulty—the affair was stilled and the men quartered.

If the Regiment had been organized, Daugherty would have been the Col. [Levi] Hinkel ran for Major and if the election had been completed would have been elected I think beyond a doubt.

We are all well and enjoying ourselves greatly. Let me compliment you John on your promotion. My hopes are still pretty slim. Whistler I believe has been cashiered. Thornton acquitted. Wharton is the same old thing. Miss Joe is in fine health. She and Mrs W. have gone to St. Louis for the health of the children. I gave Miss Joe your message. She swears she’s not engaged. Miss Constance sends her love and wanted to know why you didn’t write to her. Mrs. Rich has lost her baby and has moved into the garrison. Report says two companies of the Rifle Regiment are coming up here to winter. Capt. [Nathanial] Boone has got a leave of absence for six months whenever the command of the Department thinks his services can be dispensed with–looks something like resigning ok? Col. [Richard] Mason is still on recruiting service.

Write whenever you can and whenever you have an opportunity, I will let you know what is going on here. Remember me to all most kindly and
Believe me,
Yours Sincerely,
E. McLean [, Compy A, Ist Infy, Fort Leavenworth AAAdjGenl .]

HinkleObit1872

MAJOR LEVI HINKLE.
Oct. 12, 1872—Maj. Levi Hinkle died at his home, north of Parkville.
W. C. White administered. Bond, $12,000. Maj. Hinkle
entered the army as a common soldier. After his discharge, he
was appointed foragemaster at Fort Leavenworth, and dealt
extensively with our people. He purchased a large farm near
Barry, resigned his office, and engaged in farming. He was a farseeing
and successful trader, a public-spirited citizen, and a zealous
Presbyerian. He was an ardent Union man during the war,
and for a time was provost-marshal. He was born in 1823; married
Margaret Campbell, daughter of William, of Clay. Oh.

William McClung Paxton, Annals of Platte County, Missouri, from its exploration down to June 1 ,1897: with genealogies of its noted families, and sketches of its pioneers and distinguished people, (Kansas City: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co., 1897) 532.

An Excursion into the West 1834

Will Gorenfeld — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:36:55 +0000

Niles Weekly Register, Vo. 89:389 August 2, 1834

UNITED STATES DRAGOONS.

[from the Army and Navy Chronicle]

The regiment of dragoon is now completed to its establishment, and all the companies have marched to Fort Gibson, where the head quarters have been established during the winter. This regiment is composed of ten companies, of about seventy men each; each man is armed with a sword, pistol and carbine. The carbine is of a peculiar description; it is on the principle of Hall’s rifles, it loads in the breech, and the part containing the charge is so constructed as to separate from the barrel by mean« of a spring. This part may be called the chamber; and is about six inches long; when loaded, it is easily returned to its position, and then, if the percussion cap is put on the touch-hole, the piece is ready for firing; it requires no ramrod, yet it is furnished with one, which answers the purpose of a wiper, and, when drawn out, makes a bayonet equal in length in the barrel of the piece, and is a very formidable weapon. The whole piece weighs seven pounds and a half, and carries balls twenty-four to the pound.

The dragoons are instructed to serve on horse or foot, as occasion may require. About this time, it is expected that they are on the expedition among the tribes of Indians inhabiting the country between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi. They arc in proceed across the country to the boggy of the Red River, thence westwardly towards the Mexican frontier, thence northward as far as it may be prudent to go, allowing time to return before the cold weather sets in. On its return, the regiment will descend by the Missouri on either bank.

Four companies will winter at Fort Leavenworth, via: Wharton’s, Hunter’s, Ford’s and Duncan’s.

Three companies, Sumner’s, Boone’s and Browne’s, on the right bank of the Mississippi, within the Indian country, near the mouth of the Des Moines.

The other three companies, Trcnor’s, Bean’s and Perkin’s at or near Fort Gibson.

The expedition, it is understood, will be accompanied by several gentlemen of science, who goat their own expense. The object of the expedition in to give the wild Indians some idea of our power, and to endeavor, under such an imposing (oree, to enter into conferences with them, to warn those Indians who have been in the habit of robbing and murdering our people who trade among them, of the dangers to which they will be exposed in case they continue their depredations and massacres.

Several delegations of’ the newly emigrated Indian, now settled beyond the states and territories, to the westward of the Mississippi, as well as the Osages and other tribes near them, will accompany the expedition, in the hope of making treaties of friendship with the wild tribes, and thus prevent, for the future, the recurrence of those wars which are s? common among the Indians.

The expedition, it is hoped, will result in much good: it will afford protection to the civilized Indians, to our frontiers, to our trade with the natives, and cover the Santa Fe caravans trading with Mexico; and, perhaps, enlighten the Indians generally as to the humane policy of the United States towards them, and also as to their own true interests.

Army and Navy Chronicle May 5, 1836

A SUMMER UPON THE PRAIRIE

No. 1

Departure of U.S. Dragoons From Fort Leavenworth —
Officers Attached to the Corps — Corps — Big Nemohaw— A traveling bridge – -a novel craft — man drowned — Little Nemohaw — Saline.

TUESDAY, May 29th, 1835.

Agreeably to General Order, No. 12, from the Head Quarters of the Army, dated March 9, 1835, three companies of the regiment U.S. Dragoons, under command of Col. H. Dodge, left Fort Leavenworth this day for the purpose of visiting various tribes of Indian inhabiting the country east of the Rocky Mountains, and between the two great rivers
La Platte and Arkansas. The officers attached to this command are Col. H. Dodge, commanding the expedition; Capt. L. Ford commanding Company G; Capt. M. Duncan commanding Company C; 1st Lieut. L.P. Lupton, commanding Company A; 2nd Lieut. G.P. Kingsbury, Acting Adjutant; 2nd Lieut. B. A Terrett, Commissary of Subsistence;
2nd Lieut. E. Steen, Ordnance Officer; and Assistant Surgeon B.F. Fellowes.

Our course for the first twelve days lay over that beautiful and highly interesting country, lying between the Missouri River on the East, and the Ottoe country and the Platte River on the West. This portion of country had so often been described by other travellers, and particularly by Mr. John T. Irving, in a late work, entitled “Irving Indian Sketches,” that I shall pass it over , merely noticing some few of the most important events connected with the march to the Ottoe village.

In consequence of the early rains which commenced falling nearly simultaneously with our leaving Fort Leavenworth, all the little prairie creeks, which in ordinary seasons, contain little or no water, had become swollen to an almost impassable degree. The first stream of any importance which became necessary for us to cross was the Big Nemohaw.
This river takes its rise in the Prairie, and after running a north-west course about one hundred miles, falls into the Missouri below the mouth of the Platte. As was expected, we found it nearly so high as to be out of its banks, and with a current really frightful. The great question then was how are we to get our ordnance and wagons across the river?
Various modes were suggested, but all seemed objectionable. At length, a raft or jam of logs was found in a short bend in the river, which extended completely across the stream, and which appeared to be solidly embedded in the bottom. To throw a bridge across at this point, making the raft serve as a foundation, seemed the most feasible, as well as the most speedy and safe, mode of crossing. Accordingly, a detail was ordered for each company, which, under the direction of Lieut. Steen, commenced operations. Timbers were cut and laid about half way across the river, as a foundation on which to place pluncheons. In less than three hours the bridge was half completed. In the meantime the river continued to rise rapidly. All at once, and while I was standing upon the bank of the river, congratulating myself and my fellow officers upon our good fortune, lo! the raft, bridge, and all, took the line of march “for New Orleans and intermediate ports.” At the moment the alarm was given that the raft was moving, there were nearly twenty men at work upon the bridge; and several others seated upon the logs, fishing in the Nemohaw.
Such a scampering hath probably not been seen since the flood. Happily, all reached the shore in safety.

After the disaster of the morning, it became necessary to cast about for some other mode by which our baggage and such of the command as could not swim, could be conveyed to the other side of the river. As good luck would have it, someone suggested the possibility, that the body of a small body of a wagon belonging to one of the officers, might be so calked and otherwise repaired as to answer in the place of a boat. After an hour’s work, this novel craft was launched in due form, and found to ride upon the water as though it had been its natural element, and by attaching ropes to each end of the boat, it could be drawn from shore to shore with great facility. While these preparations were going on, our enterprising friend Capt. G.——, who accompanied the expedition as guide, was employed in constructing another vehicle which, to me, was equally novel. This second non-descript was manufactured from the hide of an ox, which that morning had been butchered. Within two hours from the time the ox was quietly grazing upon the luxuriant grass of the prairie, his skin was upon the waters of the Big Nemohaw, and conveying from shore to shore a burden of six hundred pounds.— In one day the command crossed in these boats with all its baggage without the slightest loss or accident, after which, the horses and mules were made to swim the stream.

The Indian traders, Messrs. O’Fallon and Winter, who accompanied the expedition, were not equally fortunate in crossing the Nemohaw. After crossing their goods in skin boats, and while they were engaged in swimming their horses, one of their men was drowned. In attempting to swim his horse, he was thrown from his back; and in endeavouring to regain his seat, the horse struck him with one of feet upon the back of his head with such violence as is supposed to have deprived him of sense, He instantly sank, and owing to the swiftness of the current was seen no more.

A march of twenty-five miles brought us to the Little Nemohaw, a stream running nearly parallel with the Big Nemohaw, and which also falls into the Missouri. Although not so large as the first, yet we were compelled to cross it in the same manner. Having killed another of our beef cattle for the use of the troops, we were enabled to add another boat to our squadron.

The only stream of any importance, after leaving the Little Nemohaw, is the Saline. The water of this stream, when not swollen by recent rains, is very salt to the taste; it is from twenty to thirty yards wide, with a rocky bottom, and may be forded without difficulty.