March 22. Cholera broke out again this morning, and I was a sufferer, but not to die of it, and was lying twelve hours after my attack resting, when I was called to see young Combs who had just been taken ill. The night before Mr. Upshur had sent for me, and a small force, to aid in a guard he wanted over a man he thought had a portion of our money, and, as was my custom, I called for volunteers (a lesson I learned from Jack Hayes[13] when I was in Texas), and Combs was one of the first to come forward. He was so debilitated I refused to let him go, and it was quite a task, tired and ill as I was, to convince him, it was his strength, not his spirit I doubted. How glad he was now, that I had not allowed him to go. Alas, he had a longer journey before him. At ten next morning the fatal stupor came over him. His friend J. J. Bloomfield had been like a brother to him, untiring in his devotion, and when in a few hours Combs ceased to breathe Bloomfield almost collapsed himself. Of the entire company that started with us for California, at one time numbering ninety-eight, Hudson, Bloomfield, Bachman and Damon were all who were able to help me perform the last rites for their companion.
After two hours hard work we had dug a grave, and returned to camp, the soil was a lime-like one, so hard that every inch had to be picked. Our whole camp was silent, as we wrapped Combs in his blankets; "not a drum was heard nor a funeral note," came strongly to my mind, and about twenty of the company started to follow to the grave; the burning heat of the day was past and the sun was just setting in a sky without a cloud. All moisture seemed to have left the face of nature, the distant prairies, broken only here and there by a musquit, gave a wild desolation to the scene, and as we fell into line without an order being given, I thought I had never seen a more forlorn, haggard set of men. Sadly indeed, did we bear our late companion to his last home, and when we reached the grave only eleven men had had strength to follow. We lowered the body with our lariats and I read the funeral service. As I said, "Let us pray," all kneeled, and when I added a short but heartfelt prayer for courage, energy and a return of health to our ill-fated company, not a dry eye was amongst us; not one man but felt our position one of solemnity seldom, if ever, experienced before by any of us. We returned to our desolate camp to look on others still in danger and needing consolation, even if we could not give relief. So ended our last day on the banks of the Alamo, and we retired to our tents to think on who might be the next to go, all ideas of business being for the time driven from our minds; even those not ill, seemed almost apathetic.
March 23d. Again came morning with its fiery sun burning and drying everything. Breakfast was tasted, but not eaten. A committee from the company came to know what should be done. Col. Webb with one of our doctors and four men went off to Mier, to get out of the sun, for with all his boast of, "I live as my men live," he said he "should die in that sun." I was obliged to go back to Rio Grande City about our money, so I told the men that we had better wait and see what further money we could recover and how our health was likely to be. All acquiesced, and with Clement and Simson I left for Roma on my way to Rio Grande, where I recovered four thousand dollars more of our money; I still hoped to regain the balance, about seven thousand dollars, but it was never found.
To tell of the dull monotony of this place would be most tedious, nearly as hard to think of as to endure. I found the officers of the camp my most sympathetic companions, Captain McCown, Dr. Campbell, Lieuts. Caldwell, Hazzard and Hayne, and Captain Deas.
Four days of fruitless examinations passed, and one night I had made my blankets into a bed, and was trying to find a soft position for my weak and bony legs, when Clement came to tell me I was wanted in Judge Stakes's room; with Lieut. Browning I went over. At a circular table covered with books and papers, lighted by a single candle, sat Clay Davis, his fine half-Roman, half-Grecian head resting on his small, well shaped hand, his position that which gave us the full beauty first of his profile, then of full face; his long black hair with a soft wave in it gave wildness and his black moustache added to a slight sneer as he looked at a Mexican thief standing before him; he was altogether one of the most striking figures I have ever seen. Opposite was Judge Stakes, also a very handsome man, as fair in hair and complexion as Clay Davis was dark. Behind him stood Simson with his Vandyke head and peaked beard; he was in deep shadow, with arms folded, and head a little bowed, but his searching eyes fixed keenly on the prisoner.
One step in advance stood Don Francisco putting question after question to the thief, a little further off stood three other rascals, their muscular arms tied, waiting "adjudication."
On the other side, in the light, sat another Mexican holding the stolen property which had been recovered; and behind him a table with glasses, bottles and a demijohn. Lieut. Browning and I sat on a cot bed covered with a Mexican blanket, watching the whole scene, denials, confessions, accusations, threats, and one after another piece by piece was produced of our property. All the clothes were recovered, amid questions and oaths in Spanish and English, until we abandoned all hope of regaining anything more.
With Lieut. Browning I left to return to Mier, but half-way between Davis's rancho and Roma met the company in wagons which they had hired. All were well, but so weary and debilitated they had decided to go home. I continued on my way to see Col. Webb and get his ideas on the course to be pursued. I received his orders and left at two o'clock that night with his son, Mitchell, and Lieut. Browning; regained the company, called the men together, read their agreement to them, and said all I could to remind them of the obligations they were under to go on and fulfil their contract, but almost universal refusal met my appeal. Only twenty-one agreed to go on; what a falling off from ninety-eight! Out of those who agreed to go on two were cooks, two teamsters, two servants, and some few who said they did not care for the company, they only wanted to go to California. Can it be wondered at that I doubted such men? I left them all to reconsider their position, and went off to think over my own troubles, and make up my mind how to act. In half an hour I returned and told the men my determination. "I have thought of my position in the company, I have done all I could in the interests of the company, but now I am going home. I am not old enough to preach to you, but should you go home, let contentment and gratitude for what you have be gained by the hardships and sorrows you have endured, and may God bless those who go on, and those who return." So ended "Col. Webb's California Co."
Fortune, always fickle, now changed. No steamer came to take us back; for two days we were quite determined to take the voyage homewards, but with returning health the men began to feel encouraged, and I thought perhaps I ought to make another effort to go on. I consulted all I could on the subject, and of course had varying opinions. Captain McCown said: "Go back, no one can do anything with volunteers, you have no power to compel obedience; now you go back honorably, and you don't know what you will have to endure on a march through Mexico." Lieut. Caldwell urged me to go on, said "it was military education never to give up, so long as there was any possibility of the original idea being carried out."
Slowly I walked along thinking. I had not found the men disobedient, and I believed the cholera was the chief cause of discouragement, and the fact that Col. Webb had left the men in their distress the source of the anger against him. I decided that I could go on, and determined to make one more effort. That evening while sitting under an ebony tree, about eight o'clock, in the darkness which follows so rapidly on the short southern twilight, I heard a song from one of our company, and in a few minutes a chorus, good spirits seem to have returned, and leaving my seat I went over to Armstrong's Hotel.