During these years one finds Kit Carson’s tracks all over the West about as hard to follow as those of a flea in a blanket.
Here, for example, is a description of the American army of the Bear Flag republic seizing California in 1846. “A vast cloud of dust appeared first, and thence, a long file, emerged this wildest wild party. Fremont rode ahead—a spare, active-looking man, with such an eye! He was dressed in a blouse and leggings and wore a felt hat. After him came five Delaware Indians, who were his body-guard, and have been with him through all his wanderings; they had charge of the baggage horses. The rest, many of them blacker than the Indians, rode two and two, the rifle held in one hand across the pommel of the saddle. Thirty-nine of them there are his regular men, the rest are loafers picked up lately; his original men are principally backwoodsmen from the state of Tennessee, and the banks of the upper waters of the Missouri.... The dress of these men was principally a long loose coat of deerskin, tied with thongs in front; trousers of the same, which when wet through, they take off, scrape well inside with a knife, and put on as soon as dry. The saddles were of various fashions, though these and a large drove of horses, and a brass field gun, were things they had picked up about California. They are allowed no liquor; this, no doubt, has much to do with their good conduct; and the discipline, too, is very strict.”
One of these men was Kit Carson, sent off in October to Washington on the Atlantic, three thousand miles away, with news that California was conquered for the United States, by a party of sixty men. In New Mexico, Kit met General Kearney, and told him that the Californians were a pack of cowards. So the general sent back his troops, marching on with only one hundred dragoons. But the Californians were not cowards, they had risen against the American invasion, they were fighting magnificently, and Fremont had rather a bad time before he completed the conquest.
It was during the Californian campaign that Carson made his famous ride, the greatest feat of horsemanship the world has ever known. As a despatch rider, he made his way through the hostile tribes, and terrific deserts from the Missouri to California and back, a total of four thousand, four hundred miles. But while he rested in California, before he set out on the return, he joined a party of Californian gentlemen on a trip up the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Two of the six men had a remount each, but four of them rode the six hundred miles without change of horses in six days. Add that, and the return to Kit Carson’s journey, and it makes a total of five thousand, six hundred miles. So for distance, he beats world records by one hundred miles, at a speed beyond all comparison, and in face of difficulties past all parallel.
For some of us old western reprobates who were cow hands, despising a sheep man more than anything else alive, it is very disconcerting to know that Carson went into that business. He became a partner of his lifelong friend, Maxwell, whose rancho in New Mexico was very like a castle of the Middle Ages. The dinner service was of massive silver, but the guests bedded down with a cowhide on the floor. New Mexico was a conquered country owned by the United States, at intervals between the Mexican revolts, when Kit settled down as a rancher. The words settled down, mean that he served as a colonel of volunteers against the Mexicans, and spent the rest of the time fighting Apaches, the most ferocious of all savages.
Near Santa Fe, lived Mr. White and his son who fell in defense of their ranch, having killed three Apaches, while the women and children of the household met with a much worse fate than that of death. The settlers refused to march in pursuit until Carson arrived, but by mistake he was not given command, a Frenchman having been chosen as leader.
The retreat of the savages was far away in the mountains, and well fortified. The only chance of saving the women and children was to rush this place before there was time to kill them, and Carson dashed in with a yell, expecting all hands to follow. So he found himself alone, surrounded by the Apaches, and as they rushed, he rode, throwing himself on the off side of his horse, almost concealed behind its neck. Six arrows struck his horse, and one bullet lodged in his coat before he was out of range. He cursed his Mexicans, he put them to shame, he persuaded them to fight, then led a gallant charge, killing five Indians as they fled. The delay had given them time to murder the women and children.
Once, after his camp had been attacked by Indians, Carson discovered that the sentry failed to give an alarm because he was asleep. The Indian punishment followed, and the soldier was made for one day to wear the dress of a squaw.
Kit Carson