To understand the reason for General Armijo’s evacuation of New Mexico without firing a shot in its defense, it is necessary to here interject a chapter of secret history. The bloodless annexation of New Mexico was due, not to Colonel Kearny, but to an American trader and frontiersman named James Macgoffin. Macgoffin, who had lived and done business for years in Chihuahua, was intimately acquainted with Mexico and the Mexicans. He was not only familiar with the physiography of the country, but he understood the psychology of its people and how to take advantage of it. When war was declared he happened to be in Washington. Going to Senator Benton, he explained that he wished to offer his services to the nation and outlined to the deeply interested senator a plan he had in mind. Senator Benton immediately took Macgoffin to the White House and obtained him an interview with the President and the Secretary of War, who, after listening to his scheme, gladly availed themselves of his services. Macgoffin thereupon hastened to Independence, Mo., where he hastily outfitted a wagon-train and some weeks later, in his customary rôle of trader, arrived at Santa Fé, reaching there several weeks in advance of Kearny’s column. The details of his dealings with General Armijo, of how he worked upon his cupidity, and of the precise inducements which he offered him to withdraw his forces from the pass of the Galisteo, to evacuate Santa Fé and leave all New Mexico to be occupied by the Americans, are buried in the archives of the Department of State, and will probably never be known. But though Armijo fled and Kearny effected a bloodless conquest, Macgoffin’s work was not yet done. There remained the most dangerous part of his mission, which was to do for General Wool in Chihuahua what he had done for Colonel Kearny in Santa Fé. That he carried his life in his hands no one knew better than himself, for had the Mexicans learned of his mission he would have died before a firing-party. As a matter of fact, he did arouse the suspicions of the authorities in Chihuahua, but, owing to their inability to confirm them and to his personal friendship with certain high officials, instead of being executed he was sent as a prisoner to Durango, where he was held until the close of the war. Upon his return to Washington after hostilities had ended, Congress, in secret session, voted him fifty thousand dollars as remuneration for his services, but, though President Taylor urged the prompt payment of the same, the War Department arbitrarily reduced the sum to thirty thousand dollars, which was insufficient to cover the disbursements he had made. Ingratitude, it will thus be seen, is not confined to princes.
Having organized a territorial government, brought order out of chaos, and put New Mexico’s house in thorough order, Kearny, now become a general, set out on September 25 with only three hundred dragoons for the conquest of California. This march of Kearny’s, with a mere handful of troopers, across fifteen hundred miles of unknown country and his invasion, subjugation, and occupation of a bitterly hostile territory are almost without parallel in history. Colonel Doniphan, who was left in command of all the forces in New Mexico, rapidly pushed forward his preparations for his contemplated descent upon Chihuahua, delaying his start only until the arrival of Colonel Price’s column to occupy the newly conquered territory. But on October 11, just as everything was in readiness for the expedition’s departure, a despatch rider brought him orders from Kearny to delay his movement upon Chihuahua and proceed into the country of the Navajos to punish them for the depredations they had recently committed along the western borders of New Mexico. The disappointment of the Missourians, when these orders were communicated to them, can be imagined, for they had volunteered for a war against Mexicans, not Indians. But that did not prevent them from doing the business they were ordered to do and doing it well. Crossing the Cordilleras in the depths of winter without tents and without winter clothing, Doniphan rounded up the hostile chiefs and forced them to sign a treaty of peace by which they agreed to abstain from further molestation of their neighbors, whether Indian, Mexican, or American. A novel treaty, that, signed on the western confines of New Mexico between parties who had scarcely so much as heard each other’s names before, and giving peace and protection to Mexicans who were hostile to both. No wonder that the Navajos and the New Mexicans, who had been at war with each other for centuries, looked with amazement and respect on an enemy who, disregarding all racial and religious differences, stepped in and drew up a treaty which brought peace to all three.
Owing to the delay caused by the expedition against the Navajos, it was the middle of December and bitterly cold before the column was at last ready to start upon the conquest of Chihuahua. The line of march was due south from Santa Fé, along the east bank of the Rio Grande, to El Paso del Norte. Ninety miles of it lay through the Jornada del Muerto—the “Journey of Death.” In traversing this desert the men suffered terribly, for the weather had now become extremely cold, and there was neither wood for fires nor water to drink. The soldiers, though footsore with marching, benumbed by the piercing winds, and weakened from lack of food, pushed grimly forward through the night, for there were few halts for rest, setting fire to the dry bunches of prairie grass and the tinder-like stalks of the soap-plant, which would blaze up like a flash of powder and as quickly die out, leaving the men shivering in the cold. The course of the straggling column could be described for miles by these sudden glares of light which intermittently stabbed the darkness. Toward midnight the head of the column would halt for a little rest, but throughout the night the weary, limping companies would continue to straggle in, the men throwing themselves supperless upon the gravel and instantly falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. At daylight they were awakened by the bugles and the march would be resumed, with no breakfast save hardtack, for there was no fuel upon the desert with which to cook. Such was the three days’ march of Doniphan’s men across the Journey of Death. On the 22d of December the expedition reached the Mexican hamlet of Donanna, where the soldiers found an abundance of cornmeal, dried fruit, sheep, and cattle, as well as grain and fodder for their starving horses, and, most welcome of all, streams of running water. The army was now within the boundaries of the state of Chihuahua.
On Christmas Day, after a shorter march than usual, the column encamped at the hamlet of Brazito, twenty-five miles from El Paso, on the Rio Grande. While the men were scattered among the mesquite in quest of wood and water a splutter of musketry broke out along their front, and the pickets came racing in with the news that a strong force of Mexicans was advancing. The officers, as cool as though back at Fort Leavenworth, threw their men into line for their first battle. Colonel Doniphan and his staff had been playing loo to determine who should have a fine Mexican horse that had been captured by the advance-guard that morning.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to stop the game long enough to whip the greasers,” Doniphan remarked, carefully laying his cards face down upon the ground, “but just bear in mind that I’m ahead in the score. We’ll play it out after the scrap is over.” The game was never finished, however, for during the battle the horse which formed the stakes mysteriously disappeared.
The Mexican force, which was under the command of General Ponce de Leon, was composed of some thirteen hundred men. Five hundred of these consisted of the Vera Cruz lancers, one of the crack regiments of the Mexican army; the remainder were volunteer cavalry and infantry from El Paso and Chihuahua. When a few hundred yards separated the opposing forces, a lieutenant of lancers, magnificently mounted and carrying a black flag—a signal that no quarter would be given—spurred forward at full gallop until within a few paces of the American line, when, with characteristic Mexican bravado, he suddenly jerked his horse back upon its haunches. Doniphan’s interpreter, a lean frontiersman clad in the broad-brimmed hat and fringed buckskin of the plains, rode out to meet him.
“General Ponce de Leon, in command of the Mexican forces,” began the young officer arrogantly, “presents his compliments to your commander and demands that he appear instantly before him.”
“If your general is so all-fired anxious to see Colonel Doniphan,” was the dry answer, “let him come over here. We won’t run away from him.”
“We’ll come and take him, then!” shouted the hot-headed youngster angrily; “and remember that we shall give no quarter!”
“Come right ahead, young feller,” drawled the plainsman, as the messenger spurred back to the Mexican lines, his sinister flag streaming behind him. “You’ll find us right here waitin’ fer you.”