FREMONT'S FOURTH EXPEDITION, AND GREAT DISASTER IN THE SNOWS AT THE HEAD OF THE RIO GRANDE DEL NORTE: SUBSEQUENT DISCOVERY OF THE PASS HE SOUGHT.
No sooner freed from the army, than Frémont set out upon a fourth expedition to the western slope of our continent, now entirely at his own expense, and to be conducted during the winter, and upon a new line of exploration. His views were practical as well as scientific, and tending to the establishment of a railroad to the Pacific, as well as the enlargement of geographical knowledge. He took the winter for his time, as that was the season in which to see all the disadvantages of his route; and the head of the Rio Grande del Norte for his line, as it was the line of the centre, and one not yet explored, and always embraced in his plan of discovery. The mountain men had informed him that there was a good pass at the head of the Del Norte. Besides other dangers and hardships, he had the war ground of the Utahs, Apaches, Navahoes, and other formidable tribes to pass through, then all engaged in hostilities with the United States, and ready to prey upon any party of whites; but 33 of his old companions, 120 picked mules, fine rifles—experience, vigilance and courage—were his reliance; and a trusted security against all evil. Arrived at the Pueblos on the Upper Arkansas, the last of November, at the base of the first sierra to be crossed, luminous with snow and stern in their dominating look, he dismounted his whole company, took to their feet, and wading waist-deep in the vast unbroken snow field, arrived on the other side in the beautiful valley of San Luis; but still on the eastern side of the great mountain chain which divided the waters which ran east and west to the rising and the setting sun. At the head of that valley was the pass, described to him by the old hunters. With his glasses he could see the depression in the mountain which marked its place. He had taken a local guide from the Pueblo San Carlos to lead him to that pass. But this precaution for safety was the passport to disaster. He was behind, with his faithful draughtsman, Preuss, when he saw his guide leading off the company towards a mass of mountains to the left: he rode up and stopped them, remonstrated with the guide for two hours; and then yielded to his positive assertion that the pass was there. The company entered a tortuous gorge, following a valley through which ran a head stream of the great river Del Norte. Finally they came to where the ascent was to begin, and the summit range crossed. The snow was deep, the cold intense, the acclivity steep, and the huge rocks projecting. The ascent was commenced in the morning, struggled with during the day, an elevation reached at which vegetation (wood) ceased, and the summit in view, when, buried in snow, exhausted with fatigue, freezing with cold, and incapable of further exertion, the order was given to fall back to the line of vegetation where wood would afford fire and shelter for the night. With great care the animals were saved from freezing, and at the first dawn of day the camp, after a daybreak breakfast, were in motion for the ascent. Precautions had been taken to make it more practicable. Mauls, prepared during the night, were carried by the foremost division to beat down a road in the snow. Men went forward by relieves. Mules and baggage followed in long single file in the track made in the snow. The mountain was scaled: the region of perpetual congelation was entered. It was the winter solstice, and at a place where the summer solstice brought no life to vegetation—no thaw to congelation. The summit of the sierra was bare of every thing but snow, ice and rocks. It was no place to halt. Pushing down the side of the mountain to reach the wood three miles distant, a new and awful danger presented itself: a snow storm raging, the freezing winds beating upon the exposed caravan, the snow become too deep for the mules to move in, and the cold beyond the endurance of animal life. The one hundred and twenty mules, huddling together from an instinct of self-preservation from each other's heat and shelter, froze stiff as they stood, and fell over like blocks, to become hillocks of snow. Leaving all behind, and the men's lives only to be saved, the discomfited and freezing party scrambled back, recrossing the summit, and finding under the lee of the mountain some shelter from the driving storm, and in the wood that was reached the means of making fires.
The men's lives were now saved, but destitute of every thing, only a remnant of provisions, and not even the resource of the dead mules which were on the other side of the summit; and the distance computed at ten days of their travel to the nearest New Mexican settlement. The guide, and three picked men, were despatched thither for some supplies, and twenty days fixed for their return. When they had been gone sixteen days, Frémont, preyed upon by anxiety and misgiving, set off after them, on foot, snow to the waist, blankets and some morsels of food on the back: the brave Godey, his draughtsman Preuss, and a faithful servant, his only company. When out six days he came upon the camp of his guide, stationary and apparently without plan or object, and the men haggard, wild and emaciated. Not seeing King, the principal one of the company, and on whom he relied, he asked for him. They pointed to an older camp, a little way off. Going there he found the man dead, and partly devoured. He had died of exhaustion, of fatigue, and his comrades fed upon him. Gathering up these three survivors, Frémont resumed his journey, and had not gone far before he fell on signs of Indians—two lodges, implying 15 or 20 men, and some 40 or 50 horses—all recently passed along. At another time this would have been an alarm, one of his fears being that of falling in with a war party. He knew not what Indians they were, but all were hostile in that quarter, and evasion the only security against them. To avoid their course was his obvious resource: on the contrary, he followed it! for such was the desperation of his situation that even a change of danger had an attraction. Pursuing the trail down the Del Norte, then frozen solid over, and near the place where Pike encamped in the winter of 1807-'8, they saw an Indian behind his party, stopped to get water from an air hole. He was cautiously approached, circumvented, and taken. Frémont told his name: the young man, for he was quite young, started, and asked him if he was the Frémont that had exchanged presents with the chief of the Utahs at Las Vegas de Santa Clara three years before? He was answered, yes. Then, said the young man, we are friends: that chief was my father, and I remember you. The incident was romantic, but it did not stop there. Though on a war inroad upon the frontiers of New Mexico, the young chief became his guide, let him have four horses, conducted him to the neighborhood of the settlements, and then took his leave, to resume his scheme of depredation upon the frontier.
Frémont's party reached Taos, was sheltered in the house of his old friend Carson—obtained the supplies needed—sent them back by the brave Godey, who was in time to save two-thirds of the party, finding the other third dead along the road, scattered at intervals as each had sunk exhausted and frozen, or half burnt in the fire which had been kindled for them to die by. The survivors were brought in by Godey, some crippled with frozen feet. Frémont found himself in a situation which tries the soul—which makes the issue between despair and heroism—and leaves no alternative but to sink under fate, or to rise above it. His whole outfit was gone: his valiant mountain men were one-third dead, many crippled: he was penniless, and in a strange place. He resolved to go forward—nulla vestigia retrorsum: to raise another outfit, and turn the mountains by the Gila. In a few days it was all done—men, horses, arms, provisions—all acquired; and the expedition resumed. But it was no longer the tried band of mountain men on whose vigilance, skill and courage he could rely to make their way through hostile tribes. They were new men, and to avoid danger, not to overcome it, was his resource. The Navahoes and Apaches had to be passed, and eluded—a thing difficult to be done, as his party of thirty men and double as many horses would make a trail, easy to be followed in the snow, though not deep. He took an unfrequented course, and relied upon the secrecy and celerity of his movements. The fourth night on the dangerous ground the horses, picketed without the camp, gave signs of alarm: they were brought within the square of fires, and the men put on the alert. Daybreak came without visible danger. The camp moved off: a man lagged a little behind, contrary to injunctions: the crack of some rifles sent him running up. It was then clear that they were discovered, and a party hovering round them. Two Indians were seen ahead: they might be a decoy, or a watch, to keep the party in view until the neighboring warriors could come in. Evasion was no longer possible: fighting was out of the question, for the whole hostile country was ahead, and narrow defiles to be passed in the mountains. All depended upon the address of the commander. Relying upon his ascendant over the savage mind, Frémont took his interpreter, and went to the two Indians. Godey said he should not go alone, and followed. Approaching them, a deep ravine was seen between. The Indians beckoned him to go round by the head of the ravine, evidently to place that obstacle between him and his men. Symptoms of fear or distrust would mar his scheme: so he went boldly round, accosted them confidently, and told his name. They had never heard it. He told them they ought to be ashamed, not to know their best friend; inquired for their tribe, which he wished to see: and took the whole air of confidence and friendship. He saw they were staggered. He then invited them to go to his camp where the men had halted, and take breakfast with him. They said that might be dangerous—that they had shot at one of his men that morning, and might have killed him, and now be punished for it. He ridiculed the idea of their hurting his men, charmed them into the camp, where they ate, and smoked, and told their secret, and became messengers to lead their tribe in one direction, while Frémont and his men escaped by another; and the whole expedition went through without loss, and without molestation. A subsequent winter expedition completed the design of this one, so disastrously frustrated by the mistake of a guide. Frémont went out again upon his own expense—went to the spot where the guide had gone astray—followed the course described by the mountain men—and found safe and easy passes all the way to California, through a good country, and upon the straight line of 38 and 39 degrees. It is the route for the Central Pacific Railroad, which the structure of the country invites, and every national consideration demands.