"I heard from him by letter once or twice afterward, in one of which he asked me to procure for him the agency for the Utes. On inquiry at the proper office in Washington, I found that another person had secured the place of which I notified him, and though of late years I have often been on the Purgation, and in the Ute country, I could learn nothing of the other children of Kit Carson, or of William, who for four years was a sort of ward to me.

"Since the building of railroads in that region, the whole character of its population is changed, and were Kit Carson to arise from his grave, he could not find a buffalo, elk or deer, where he used to see millions. He could not even recognize the country with which he used to be so familiar, or find his own children, whom he loved, and for whose welfare he felt so solicitous in his later days.

"Kit Carson was a good type of a class of men most useful in their day, but now as antiquated as Jason of the Golden Fleece, Ulysses of Troy, the Chevalier La Salle of the Lakes, Daniel Boone of Kentucky, Irvin Bridger and Jim Beckwith of the Rockies, all belonging to the dead past.

"Yours Truly,

"W. T. SHERMAN."

"TRENTON, N. J., June 23, 1884.

"In accordance with your request to give my recollections of Kit Carson, I would say that I met and spent several days with him in September, 1866, at and near Fort Garland, Colorado, on the headwaters of the Rio Grande. I was then Brevet Brigadier General and Inspector United States Volunteers, on a tour of inspection of the military depots and posts in that region and across to the Pacific. General Sherman happened there at the same time, on like duty as to his Military Division, and our joint talks, as a rule, extended far into the night and over many subjects. 'Kit' was then Brevet Brigadier General United States Volunteers, and in command of Fort Garland, and a wide region thereabouts—mostly Indian—which he knew thoroughly. Fort Garland was a typical frontier post, composed of log huts chinked with mud, rough but comfortable, and in one of these Kit then lived with his Mexican wife and several half breed children.

"He was then a man apparently about fifty years of age. From what I had read about him, I had expected to see a small, wiry man, weather-beaten and reticent; but found him to be a medium sized, rather stoutish, and quite talkative person instead. His hair was already well-silvered, but his face full and florid. You would scarcely regard him, at first sight, as a very noticeable man, except as having a well knit frame and full, deep chest. But on observing him more closely, you were struck with the breadth and openness of his brow, bespeaking more than ordinary intelligence and courage; with his quick, blue eye, that caught everything at a glance apparently—an eye beaming with kindliness and benevolence, but that could blaze with anger when aroused; and with his full, square jaw and chin, that evidently could shut as tight as Sherman's or Grant's when necessary. With nothing of the swashbuckler or Buffalo Bill—of the border ruffian or the cowboy—about him, his manners were as gentle, and his voice as soft and sympathetic, as a woman's. What impressed one most about his face was its rare kindliness and charity—that here, at last, was a natural gentleman, simple as a child but brave as a lion. He soon took our hearts by storm, and the more we saw of him the more we became impressed with his true manliness and worth. Like everybody else on the border, he smoked freely, and at one time drank considerably; but he had quit drinking years before, and said he owed his excellent health and preeminence, if he had any, to his habits of almost total abstinence. In conversation he was slow and hesitating at first, approaching almost to bashfulness, often seemingly at a loss for words; but, as he warmed up, this disappeared, and you soon found him talking glibly, and with his hands and fingers as well—rapidly gesticulating—Indian fashion. He was very conscientious, and in all our talks would frequently say: 'Now, stop gentlemen! Is this right?' 'Ought we to do this?' 'Can we do that?' 'Is this like human nature?' or words to this effect, as if it was the habit of his mind to test everything by the moral law. I think that was the predominating feature of his character—his perfect honesty and truthfulness—quite as much as his matchless coolness and courage. Said Sherman to me one day while there: 'His integrity is simply perfect. The red skins know it, and would trust Kit any day before they would us, or the President, either!' And Kit well returned their confidence, by being their steadfast, unswerving friend and ready champion.

"He talked freely of his past life, unconscious of its extraordinary character. Born in Kentucky, he said, he early took to the plains and mountains, and joined the hunters and trappers, when he was so young he could not set a trap. When he became older, he turned trapper himself, and trapped all over our territories for beaver, otter, etc., from the Missouri to the Pacific, and from British America to Mexico. Next he passed into Government employ, as an Indian scout and guide, and as such piloted Fremont and others all over the Plains and through the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Fremont, in his reports, surrounded Kit's name with a romantic valor, but he seems to have deserved it all, and more. His good sense, his large experience, and unfaltering courage, were invaluable to Fremont, and it is said about the only time the Pathfinder went seriously astray among the Mountains was when he disregarded his (Kit's) advice, and endeavored to force a passage through the Rockies northwest of Fort Garland. Kit told him the mountains could not be crossed at that time of the year; and, when Fremont nevertheless insisted on proceeding, he resigned as guide. The Pathfinder, however, went stubbornly forward, but got caught in terrible snowstorms, and presently returned—half of his men and animals having perished outright from cold and hunger. Next Kit became United States Indian Agent, and made one of the best we ever had. Familiar with the language and customs of the Indians, he frequently spent months together among them without seeing a white man, and indeed became a sort of half Indian himself. In talking with us, I noticed he frequently hesitated for the right English word; but when speaking bastard Spanish (Mexican) or Indian, with the Ute Indians there, he was as fluent as a native. Both Mexican and Indian, however, are largely pantomime, abounding in perpetual grimace and gesture, which may have helped him along somewhat. Next, when the rebellion broke out, he became a Union soldier, though the border was largely Confederate. He tendered his services to Mr. Lincoln, who at once commissioned him Colonel, and told him to take care of the frontier, as the regulars there had to come East to fight Jeff Davis. Kit straightway proceeded to raise the First Regiment of New Mexico Volunteers, in which he had little difficulty, as the New Mexicans knew him well, and had the utmost confidence in him. With these, during the war, he was busy fighting hostile Indians, and keeping others friendly, and in his famous campaign against the Navajos, in New Mexico, with only six hundred frontier volunteers captured some nine thousand prisoners. The Indians withdrew into a wild canyon, where no white man, it was said, had ever penetrated, and believed to be impregnable. But Kit pursued them from either end, and attacked them with pure Indian strategy and tactics; and the Navajos finding themselves thus surrounded, and their supplies cut off, outwitted by a keener fighter than themselves, surrendered at discretion. Then he did not slaughter them, but marched them to a goodly reservation, and put them to work herding and planting, and they had continued peaceable ever since.

"Kit seemed thoroughly familiar with Indian life and character, and it must be conceded, that no American of his time knew our aborigines better—if any so well. It must be set down to their credit, that he was their stout friend—no Boston philanthropist more so. He did not hesitate to say, that all our Indian troubles were caused originally by bad white men, if the truth were known, and was terribly severe on the brutalities and barbarities of the border. He said the Indians were very different from what they used to be, and were yearly becoming more so from contact with border ruffians and cowboys. He said he had lived for years among them with only occasional visits to the settlements, and he had never known an Indian to injure a Pale Face, where he did not deserve it; on the other hand, he had seen an Indian kill his brother even for insulting a white man in the old times. He insisted that Indians never commit outrages unless they are first provoked to them by the borderers, and that many of the peculiar and special atrocities with which they are charged are only their imitation of the bad acts of wicked white men. He pleaded for the Indians, as 'pore ignorant critters, who had no learnin', and didn't know no better,' whom we were daily robbing of their hunting grounds and homes, and solemnly asked: 'What der yer 'spose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things?' He was particularly severe upon Col. Chivington and the Sand Creek massacre of 1864, which was still fresh in the public mind, said he; 'jist to think of that dog Chivington, and his dirty hounds, up thar at Sand Creek! Whoever heerd of sich doings 'mong Christians!'