Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West (92 page)

Chapter 35 Blood and Thunder

Francis Aubry was a celebrated figure on the trail.
David Dary,
The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore,
p. 201.

Aubry ordered ham and eggs and then was taken upstairs…
Ibid., p. 207.

“whose hands are turned against every white man…”
William Davis,
El Gringo,
p. 251.

“practising sadists” who had “great skill…”
DeVoto,
The Year of Decision,
p. 250.

“the Comanches who in 1841 killed and scalped…Robert Bent…”
Lavender,
Bent’s Fort,
p. 203.

another famous Taos trapper, named Lucien…
See Harriet Freiberger,
Lucien Maxwell: Villain or Visionary
; and Lawrence R. Murphy, “Master of the Cimarron.”

“king of that whole country…He had perfect control…”
Ibid.

“We had been leading a roving life long enough…”
Carson,
Autobiography,
p. 130.

“an extremely difficult and painful operation.”
See Murphy, “Rayado.”

the highest death rate per fighting soldier…
Eisenhower,
So Far from God.

“A deed has been done from which the country will not…recover…”
DeVoto,
The Year of Decision,
p. 214.

“Could those Mexicans have seen into my heart…”
Robert Drexter,
Guilty of Making Peace: A Biography of Nicholas P. Trist,
p. 139.

He filled the labyrinthine chambers with kegs of powder…
For a full description of William Bent’s destruction of the old fort, see Lavender,
Bent’s Fort,
pp. 338–39.

“Small in stature, and slenderly limbed…”
George Ruxton,
In the Old West,
286–87.

“I cannot express my surprise at beholding…”
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 13.

“The hero of a hundred desperate encounters…”
George Brewerton,
Overland with Kit Carson,
p. 38.

“He was uncouth”…“yet he wore shyness…like a veil.”
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 191.

“I say, stranger, are you Kit Carson?”
Ibid., p. 10.

“a lynx-like eye and an imperturbable coolness…”
Charles Averill,
Kit Carson, The Prince of the Gold Hunters,
p. 26, a microfilm copy of which I viewed at the Library of Congress.

“At the first sound, even a shout…”
Veronica Tiller,
The Jicarilla Apache
.

jicarilla
means “little basket…”
Ibid., p. 5.

“an indolent and cowardly people…”
Keleher,
Turmoil in New Mexico,
p. 71.

a “Rocky Mountain Hunter” wearing moccasins…
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
pp. 136–37.

“Being thoroughly acquainted…”
Ibid.

“The order was too late for the desired effect.”
Carson,
Autobiography,
p. 133.

“She was perfectly warm…”
Ibid.

“Kit Carson! His lip, that proud, that determined lip…”
Charles Averill,
Kit Carson, Prince of the Goldhunters,
p. 98.

“The book was the first of its kind I had ever seen…”
Carson,
Autobiography,
p. 135.

“I have much regretted the failure to save the life…”
Ibid.

“burn the damn thing.”
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 140.

BOOK THREE: MONSTER SLAYER

Chapter 36 The Fearing Time

the Navajos sometimes called “Something-Sticking-Out-From-The-Foreheads…”
Maurice Frink,
Fort Defiance and the Navajos,
p. 47.

“Large bets, larger than on the other races, were made on both sides…”
Nicholas Hodt, testimony recorded in United States,
Condition of the Indian Tribes: Report of the Joint Special Committee,
p. 314.

some Navajos called the great casks “hollow-woods…”
See Lavender,
Bent’s Fort,
p. 156.

Other accounts say the owner was…Manuelito…
Locke,
The Book of the Navajo,
p. 343.

a truly competent man held the office of Indian agent…
For more on the remarkable Henry Linn Dodge, see McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
p. 267; and Underhill,
The Navajos,
pp. 103–11.

“a superior race of Indians.”
Davis,
El Gringo,
pp. 411–12.

“The water there is mine, not yours…”
See Hoffman,
Navajo Biographies,
p. 99.

Major Brooks threatened to obliterate the Navajos…
For a full account of the attack on Brooks’s slave and its aftermath, see McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
p. 325.

in April 1860, Manuelito organized a thousand Navajo warriors…
See Frink,
Fort Defiance and the Navajos,
p. 51, Hoffman,
Navajo Biographies,
p. 100, and McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
p. 380.

“An angry fire burned within him…”
Hoffman,
Navajo Biographies,
p. 93.

“I walk like a headman now…”
Ibid., p. 90.

He scalped his victim, and later chewed on the bloody skin…
Ibid., p. 91.

“they jump around like rabbits!”
Ibid., p. 88.

Now the moment had come, the day’s grand finale.
For more details on the massacre at Fort Fauntleroy, see McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
p. 422; Marc Simmons,
The Little Lion of the Southwest,
p. 165; and Marc Simmons, “Horse Race at Fort Fauntleroy: An Incident of the Navajo War,” in the journal
La Gaceta
5(3) (1970).

“A procession of the winning party…”
Nicholas Hodt testimony in United States,
Condition of the Indian Tribes,
p. 314.

The forty-three-year-old Chaves hailed from a venerable…
My biographical sketch of Manuel Chaves is drawn from Marc Simmons,
The Little Lion of the Southwest
.

Chavez had nearly died in a Navajo clash.
Ibid., pp. 38–42.

“I saw a soldier murdering two little children…”
Nicholas Hodt testimony in United States,
Condition of the Indian Tribes,
p. 314.

“Give this soldier back his arms…”
Ibid.

Chapter 37 People of the Single Star

two armies stared at each other…
My account of the battle of Valverde is based primarily on the following sources: John Taylor,
Bloody Valverde: A Civil War Battle on the Rio Grande
; Max Heyman,
Prudent Soldier: A Biography of Major General E. R. S. Canby
; Alvin Josephy,
The Civil War in the American West
; Charles Carroll and Lynne Sebastian, eds.,
Fort Craig: The United States Fort on the Camino Real
; and Martin Hall,
Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign
.

“too prone to let the morrow take care of itself.”
Martin Hall,
Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign,
p. 38.

Those big artillery pieces…were nothing more than decoys…
Taylor,
Bloody Valverde,
p. 105.

“I’ll make my wife a nightgown out of it!”
Ibid., p. 25.

“Kit was loyal, but he was like me…”
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 229.

he “had the utmost firmness and the best of common sense…”
Ibid., p. 232.

Carson “then approached and in a mild manner…”
Ibid., p. 233.

“The mountains here are full of Indians…”
Hall,
Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign,
p. 40.

he looked “like a horned frog.”
Donald Frazier, “Long Marches and Short Rations,” in Carrol and Sebastian,
Fort Craig,
p. 102.

“Our leaders were crazy…”
Sabin,
Kit Carson Days,
p. 687.

The precise terms and arrangements of their servitude…
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 201.

“in truth but a more charming name for a species of slavery…”
Davis,
El Gringo,
p. 232.

“fell so hard as to almost peel the skin off your face.”
Josephy,
The Civil War in the American West,
p. 60.

“a widely acknowledged reputation for the spectacular…”
Jerry Thompson,
Desert Tiger: Captain Paddy Graydon and the Civil War in the Far Southwest.

“You’ve come too far from home hunting a fight…”
Taylor,
Bloody Valverde,
p. 39.

“had given his allegiance to country rather than to state…”
Ibid., p. 50.

cut out a large piece of his own tongue…
Josephy,
The Civil War in the American West,
p. 69.

“one of the most gallant and furious charges…”
Taylor,
Bloody Valverde,
p. 70.

“fought full of courage and almost in a frenzy…”
Jacqueline Meketa,
Legacy of Honor: The Life of Rafael Chacon,
p. 175.

“could not understand the signals to retreat…”
Ibid., p. 338.

Chapter 38 The Sons of Some Dear Mother

“If we can subsist our men and horses…”
Hall,
Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign,
p. 74.

“too intimate an acquaintance with ‘John Barley Corn.’”
Edrington and Taylor,
The Battle of Glorieta Pass,
p. 115.

“Those of you who volunteered…were doubtless deceived…”
Hall,
Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign,
p. 81.

“By the grace of God and these two revolvers…”
Reginald Craig,
The Fighting Parson,
p. 40.

“something of an epic.”
Alvin Josephy,
The Civil War in the American West,
p. 77.

“On they came to…certain destruction…”
Ibid., p. 80.

“You are right on top of them, Major…”
Marc Simmons,
The Little Lion of the Southwest,
p. 184.

“lost all sense of humanity.”
Edrington and Taylor,
The Battle of Glorieta Pass,
p. 95.

“We pierced the Confederate vitals and drew…the life blood.”
Ibid., p. 89.

“We have been crippled…”
Josephy,
The Civil War in the American West,
p. 85.

“a further connection might result in my assassination.”
Edrington and Taylor,
The Battle of Glorieta Pass,
p. 107.

“We do not want to take any unfair advantage…”
Hall,
Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign,
p. 132.

“chasing a shadow in a barren land.”
Ibid., p. 150.

“Any cause that men sustain to death…”
Ibid., p. 135.

Chapter 39 The Round Forest

“truly frightful…This death list is not made up of a few lives lost.”
Gerald Thompson,
The Army and the Navajo: The Bosque Redondo Reservation Experiment, 1863–1868,
p. 10.

“there is now no choice between…extermination or their removal…”
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 267.

“utterly ignorant of everything beyond their corn fields…”
Aurora Hunt,
Major General James H. Carleton, 1814–1873,
p. 146.

if Carleton had “never had to function as God…”
C. L. Sonnichsen,
The Mescalero Apaches,
p. 97.

“Born in 1814, the son of a shipmaster…”
My biographical sketch of Carleton is primarily drawn from Hunt,
James H. Carleton
.

When happiness lived up this way…
David Barker poem is quoted in ibid., p. 28.

“I cannot but think that good tales…”
Letter from Dickens to Carleton is printed in full in ibid., p. 31.

“a fine companion and a perfect gentleman…”
Ibid., p. 71.

his heart “would pant with impatience…”
Ibid., p. 85.

“Judging from the way they go on…there will be a broad stream.”
Ibid., p. 91.

the sunlight “seeming to cover with flashing diamonds…”
James Henry Carleton,
The Battle of Buena Vista,
p. 56.

“the Battle of Buena Vista…the greatest ever fought…”
Ibid., p. 158.

“I presume courage was oozing from his fingertips…”
Carson,
Autobiography,
p. 142.

“I understood them to say…they could easily kill me…”
Ibid., p. 143.

“I’ve done you no injury…”
Ibid.

“I have many friends among the soldiers…”
Ibid., p. 144.

“Carson is justly celebrated as the best tracker…”
Dunlay,
Kit Carson and the Indians,
p. 168.