I slowly walked to Boden's tent but there was no change from the stupor into which he had fallen; and I sat down to wait, for what? All exertions had been made to save our brave men, and all had failed. Like sailors with masts and rudder gone, wallowing in the trough of a storm-tossed ocean, we had to await our fate, one of us only at a time going from tent to tent of our dying companions to note the hour of their last breath.
I suddenly thought I would try one more resource, and I sent John Stevens to Dr. Campbell at Camp Ringgold, requesting him to tell the Doctor, if he did not know who I was, that we were Americans, and demanded his assistance. It came, but alas, his prescriptions and remedies were just those we had been using, calomel as soon as possible, mustard externally, great friction, opium for the pain, and slight stimulants of camphor and brandy. John Stevens had just returned, when Howard Bakewell, [who] had been his quarter of an hour watching the sick, came into my tent, where I was lying on my blankets, exclaiming, "My God, boys, I've got it, Oh, what a cramp in my stomach, Oh, rub me, rub away."
Simson and Harrison took him in hand, and I read and re-read Dr. Campbell's directions which we followed implicitly, but all to no purpose; one short half hour found Howard insensible to pain or sorrow. He asked me to tell his mother he had died in the Christian faith she had taught him, and his friends that he had died at his duty, like a man. So went one of our days opposite Davis' rancho, on the never-to-be-forgotten Rio Grande.
At four o'clock, p. m., two of our small company were dead, and two were lying senseless, and I told the noble fellows, who, forgetting self, still struggled for the company's good, that we would stay no longer in that valley of death, but to make every preparation to leave, and so they did. I was able to help them but little, for with what I had undergone the last fifty hours, and the terrible death of my young cousin, Howard Bakewell, I was utterly exhausted. Simson, Clement and John Stevens went with me across the river to the town, and the rest packed what was most valuable, and hired men to guard the camp that night.
I lay on a bed in a small house belonging to Mr. Phelps, listening and awaiting the arrival of the bodies of Bakewell and Liscomb, who were brought over under the direction of Harrison and Simson, and in a sort of a dream I heard their footsteps, sprang from the bed, and Bakewell was laid upon it. I waited for the rest of the party with my saddlebags containing the company's money; that was all of value that I thought of, and sometimes I wonder I thought of anything, I was so weary. But Clement brought them and Liscomb too, and the latter was laid out in the same room with poor Howard. We then all went to Armstrong's hotel, Clement carrying my bags and valuables, and arriving found two more of our party down with cholera. Dr. Campbell came to see us and did all in his power for the sick, and indeed for all of us, and told us it would be unsafe for us to keep our money bags, but to give them to the bar-keeper telling him their value, and promising to pay him well for his trouble in caring for them.
To tell how that night was passed would be more than I can do; Nicholas Walsh and A. T. Shipman became worse; I sent at once for Dr. Campbell and he passed the night with us. The heavy trade-wind from the south-east sighed through the open windows of the long twenty-bedded room we were in, the deep moans of young Liscomb, who, dreaming, saw nothing but the horrors of his father's death, our own sad thoughts, and the sickness of Walsh and Shipman, and our anxiousness, and perhaps nervousness, chased sleep away.
Morning came, and our friends had to be buried, and when this sad duty was over, we asked for our money, and to our amazement were told it was gone, had been delivered to one of our men. This was untrue, and we sent at once to the landlord and demanded our money. He coldly answered, "I never saw you, gentlemen, when money is left in this house, it is generally given to my charge, and then I am responsible for it." It was useless to explain that we had been unable to see him before, and, at Dr. Campbell's suggestion, we took charge of the man to whom we had intrusted it, and sent for the magistrate who took the evidence for and against, and committed the man to trial. As there was no jail, or place of security in which to confine him, we chained him to a musquit stump, and stood guard over him forty-eight hours, assistance from the garrison of Fort Ringgold having been refused us by Major La Motte.
March 18th. Today Harrison died of cholera after about twelve hours sickness, and I lost his assistance, which had been most valuable, and for a time that of Simson, who was well nigh crazy at the death of his friend, and who was besides completely under the influence of cholera, having been in the air of the malady nearly a week. The next day he was up again, his strong constitution, and still stronger mind, aiding his recovery, and again I had his services, given with his whole heart.
Today we told White, the man we held prisoner, that we were so enraged that we intended to hang him that night, or have the money back. When the sun was about an hour high, he said if we would let him go, he would tell where he had hid the money; we promised that if he recovered the money he might get away. At dusk we went with him to find it, but his accomplice had been ahead of him; never shall I forget his tone of despair, when on removing some brush and briars by a large cactus he exclaimed, "My God, it's gone." Accustomed to the summary way of judging and executing delinquents in Texas, he thought our next move would be to hang him. He swore by his God, his Saviour, and all that men held sacred, that that was where he had left the money, and prayed to be let go. Not one of us doubted the truth of what he said now, but we took him back, and again secured him, and that night Simson and Horde arrested Hughes, whom we thought to be his accomplice, finding him in a gambling house surrounded by his cronies. He, too, was secured and ironed, and slept on the ground, waking up in the morning demanding his "bitters," and as impudent as ever.
This day, March 19th, Mr. Upshur, a gentleman acting as attorney and agent for Clay Davis at Rio Grande City, and who had shown the greatest sympathy and kindness to us in our troubles, and exerted himself to the utmost to help us, called me to him, led the way to his room, closed and locked the door. He then asked me if I could swear to my money if I saw it. I told him I could not, but described it as well as I could remember. He showed me three or four thousand dollars in gold coin of different nations, and asked me again if I could swear to it. I could not, though I fully believed it was ours. He looked in my face so closely, that for an instant I thought he doubted who and what I was; but I met his clear eye, with one as honest, and slowly he drew a piece of brown post-office paper from his pocket, and asked: "Is that your handwriting?" "No," was my answer, "but it is that of Mr. Hewes of New Orleans, it is his calculation of five hundred dollars in sovereigns and half eagles which Layton and Hewes placed in my charge, and now I can swear to my money if that paper was with what you have showed me." He told me he had always been satisfied it was mine, as he knew there was not such an amount as I had lost, in the settlement. He counted it twice, took my receipt, and as we went to Camp Ringgold to leave it with the Quartermaster, Lieut. Caldwell, who was always most kind, Mr. Upshur told me the manner in which this portion of our money had been regained.