On the 15th was a twelve-mile march to a dry camp and on the 16th, after a sixteen-mile march, camp was made a half mile west of the pueblo of Tucson.
From Tucson to the Pima villages on the Gila River, a distance of about 73 miles, the way was across the desert, practically on the present line of the Southern Pacific railroad. Sixty-two miles were covered in 51 hours. At the Gila there was junction with General Kearny's route.
From the Pima villages westward there is mention of a dry "jornada" (journey) of about forty miles, caused by a great bend of the Gila River. Thus is indicated that the route was by way of Estrella Pass, south of the Sierra Estrella, on the present railroad line, and not by the alternative route, just south of and along the river and north of the mountains. Thereafter the marches averaged only ten miles a day, through much sand, as far as the Colorado, which was reached January 8, 1847.
The Battalion's route across Arizona at only one point cut a spot of future Mormon settlement. This was in the San Pedro Valley, where the march of a couple of days was through a fertile section that was occupied in 1878 by a community of the faith from Lehi. This community, now known as St. David, is referred to elsewhere, at length.
Manufactures of the Arizona Indians
Colonel Cooke told that the Maricopas, near the junction of the Gila and the Salt, had piled on their house arbors "cotton in the pod for drying." As he passed in the latter days of the year, it is probable he saw merely the bolls that had been left unopened after frost had come, and that this was not the ordinary method for handling cotton. That considerable cotton was grown is evidenced by the fact that a part of Cooke's company purchased cotton blankets. Historian Tyler states that when he reached Salt Lake the most material feature of his clothing equipment was a Pima blanket, from this proceeding an inference that the Indians made cotton goods of lasting and wearing quality. In the northern part of Arizona, the Hopi also raised cotton and made cloth and blankets, down to the time of the coming of the white man, with his gaudy calicoes that undoubtedly were given prompt preference in the color-loving aboriginal eye.
Cooke's Story of the March
"The Conquest of New Mexico and California" is the title of an excellent and entertaining volume written in 1878 by Lieut.-Col. P. St. George Cooke, commander of the Battalion. It embraces much concerning the political features found or developed in both Territories and deals somewhat with the Kearny expedition and with the Doniphan campaign into Mexico that moved from Socorro two months after the Battalion started westward from the Rio Grande. Despite his eloquent acknowledgment of good service in the San Diego order, he had little to say in his narrative concerning the personnel of his command. In addition to the estimate of the command printed on a preceding page, he wrote, "The Battalion have never been drilled and though obedient, have little discipline; they exhibit great heedlessness and ignorance and some obstinacy." The ignorance undoubtedly was of military matters, for the men had rather better than the usual schooling of the rough period. At several points his diary gave such details as, "The men arrived completely worn down; they staggered as they marched, as they did yesterday. A great many of the men are wholly without shoes and use every expedient, such as rawhide moccasins and sandals and even wrapping the feet in pieces of woolen and cotton cloth."
It is evident that to the Colonel's West Point ideas of discipline the conduct of his command was a source of irritation that eventually was overcome when he found he could depend upon the individuals as well as upon the companies. Several stories are told of his encounters in repartee with his soldiers, in which he did not always have the upper hand, despite his rank. Brusque in manner, he yet had a saving sense of humor that had to be drawn upon to carry off situations that would have been intolerable in his own command of dragoons.
Tyler's Record of the Expedition