Garrard, who was at Taos in the days immediately following the massacre, tells of Governor Bent’s death in the following words:
“While here in Fernandez (San Fernandez) with his family he was one morning early aroused from sleep by the populace, who, with the aid of the Pueblos de Taos, were collected in front of his dwelling, striving to gain admittance. While they were effecting an entrance, he, with an axe, cut through an adobe wall into another house. The wife of the occupant, a clever, though thriftless, Canadian, heard him, and with all her strength rendered him assistance, though she was a Mexican. He retreated to a room, but seeing no way of escaping from the infuriated assailants who fired upon him through a window, he spoke to his weeping wife and trembling children clinging to him with all the tenacity of love and despair, and taking a paper from his pocket endeavored to write, but fast losing strength he commended them to God and his brothers, and fell pierced by a Pueblo’s ball. Rushing in and tearing off the gray-haired scalp, the Indians bore it away in triumph.”
Among the people killed were Stephen Lee, Narcisse Beaubien, and others.
When the news of Governor Bent’s death reached the plains it created great excitement, for Charles Bent was exceedingly popular with white people and Indians alike. The Cheyennes proposed to send a war-party to Taos and to kill all the Mexicans, but William Bent would not permit it. A party from Bent’s Fort set out for Taos, but on the road were met by messengers announcing that Colonel Price had marched into Taos at the head of two hundred and fifty men and had had a fight with Mexicans and Indians in which two hundred were killed, and had then bombarded the town and knocked down its walls. A neighboring town was razed and a large amount of property destroyed.
The killing of the people at Turley’s Ranch, on the Arroyo Hondo, was a costly triumph to the Pueblos. Here were shut up men who fought well for their lives.
Ruxton tells of the battle in graphic language:
“The massacre of Turley and his people, and the destruction of his mill, were not consummated without considerable loss to the barbarous and cowardly assailants. There were in the house, at the time of the attack, eight white men, including Americans, French-Canadians, and one or two Englishmen, with plenty of arms and ammunition. Turley had been warned of the intended insurrection, but had treated the report with indifference and neglect, until one morning a man named Otterbees, in the employ of Turley, and who had been dispatched to Santa Fé with several mule-loads of whiskey a few days before, made his appearance at the gate on horseback, and hastily informing the inmates of the mill that the New Mexicans had risen and massacred Governor Bent and other Americans, galloped off. Even then Turley felt assured that he would not be molested, but, at the solicitations of his men, agreed to close the gate of the yard round which were the buildings of a mill and distillery, and make preparations for defence.
“A few hours after, a large crowd of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians made their appearance, all armed with guns and bows and arrows, and advancing with a white flag summoned Turley to surrender his house and the Americans in it, guaranteeing that his own life should be saved, but that every other American in the valley of Taos had to be destroyed; that the Governor and all the Americans at Fernandez and the rancho had been killed, and that not one was to be left alive in all New Mexico.
“To this summons Turley answered that he would never surrender his house nor his men, and that, if they wanted it or them, ‘they must take them.’
“The enemy then drew off, and, after a short consultation, commenced the attack. The first day they numbered about 500, but the crowd was hourly augmented by the arrival of parties of Indians from the more distant pueblos, and of New Mexicans from Fernandez, La Cañada, and other places.