AMERICAN MILITARY RECONNOISSANCES.
Notes of a Military Reconnoissance from Fort Leavenworth, in Missouri, to San Diego in California, including parts of the Arkansas, Del Norte, and Gila rivers. By W. H. Emory, Brevet-major, Corps Topographical Engineers. New York, 1848. London, Delf.
Reconnoissances in New Mexico, Texas, &c. (Reports of the American Secretary at War.) Washington, 1850.
Military works are not exactly the kind of literature we look for from the United States. The gigantic European wars which ensanguined the early years of the century, make us apt to depreciate all contests that have since occurred. With Austerlitz and Jena, Leipzig and Toulouse, Salamanca and Waterloo, fresh in our memory, we scarcely heed the gallant actions of which Hungary and Northern Italy have recently been the scene. Still less do we regard, otherwise than with a smile, the easy triumphs obtained by Anglo-Americans over Indians and Mexicans. And, therefore, we were glad to find, on examining these two bulky volumes of Military Reconnoissances, that they had other claims to interest besides the narration of unequal combats between the stalwart and intrepid children of the Union and the degenerate descendants of the Spanish Conquistadores. Their military portions are quite subordinate, and they may be read as books of travel, written by highly intelligent and scientific men. They comprise the notes and reports of several American staff and engineer officers sent at different times to explore New Mexico, Texas, the country of the Navajos Indians, and other wild and little known districts south and west of the States—to which much of the territory thus travelled over has since been annexed. The most copious and interesting of the reports is that of Major (then Lieutenant) Emory, who, in June 1846, received orders to repair to Fort Leavenworth, with three junior officers, and to report himself and party to Colonel Kearney, as field and topographical engineers to his command. Colonel Kearney's column, rather magniloquently styled "The Army of the West," was destined to strike a blow at the northern provinces of Mexico, particularly at New Mexico and California. This "Army of the West" was on a very diminutive scale, consisting of two batteries of six-pounders, three squadrons of dragoons, a regiment of Missouri cavalry, and two companies of infantry. It was part of Lieutenant Emory's instructions that, when military duties permitted, he and his subalterns should give their time and attention to the observation of the regions they were to traverse. The calls upon their military services proving extremely limited, they diligently pursued their peaceable and scientific researches, to which we are now indebted for a closely printed volume of notes, a large number of drawings of scenery, plants, antiquities, Indians, &c., and a map, as large as a table-cloth, of the route of the expedition. The other and more lately printed volume, more miscellaneous, and perhaps less generally interesting in its printed contents, surpasses its companion in the merits of its pictorial portion, consisting of seventy-five plates, many of them very curious, and some of them remarkably good specimens of the new art of printing in colours.
Any common map of North America will show in an instant the route followed by Lieutenant Emory. Starting from Fort Leavenworth, which is situated a little north of the junction of the Kanzas with the Missouri, he marched in a south-westerly direction to Santa Fé, then nearly due south through the country of the Navajos and Apaches Indians, and then west to San Diego on the Pacific. A great portion of this route was through regions previously little explored. The contrary was the case with its earliest portion, namely, from Fort Leavenworth to Bent's Fort, which has been much visited. It is not till he quits the latter place that Lieutenant Emory commences his miscellaneous notes, previously confining himself to scientific, and especially astronomical, observations. From Bent's Fort to Santa Fé was little more than a fortnight's march. At Santa Fé the Mexican general, Armijo, was in command, and there might probably be fighting. But on the approach of the invaders, Armijo's heart failed him: he abandoned, without a shot, his advantageous and very defensible position, and fled southwards.
"As we approached the ruins of the ancient town of Pecos, a large fat fellow, mounted on a mule, came towards us at full speed, and extending his hand to the general, congratulated him on the arrival of himself and army. He said, with a roar of laughter, 'Armijo and his troops have gone to h—, and the Cañon is all clear.' This was the Alcalde of the settlement, two miles up the Pecos from the ruins where we encamped. Pecos, once a fortified town, is built on a promontory or rock, somewhat in the shape of a foot. Here burned, until within seven years, the eternal fires of Montezuma, and the remains of the architecture exhibit, in a prominent manner, the engraftment of the Catholic church upon the ancient religion of the country. At one end of the short spur forming the terminus of the promontory, are the remains of the estufa, (stove or furnace for the preservation of the eternal fire,) with all its parts distinct; at the other are the remains of the Catholic church, both showing the distinctive marks and emblems of the two religions. The fires from the estufa burned and sent their incense through the same altars from which was preached the doctrine of Christ. Two religions so utterly different in theory were here, as in all Mexico, blended in harmonious practice until about a century since, when the town was sacked by a band of Indians. Amidst the havoc of plunder, the faithful Indian managed to keep his fire burning in the estufa, and it was continued till a few years since, when the tribe became almost extinct. Their devotions rapidly diminished their numbers, until they became so few as to be unable to keep their immense estufa (forty feet in diameter) replenished, when they abandoned the place and joined a tribe of the original race over the mountains, about sixty miles south. There, it is said, to this day they keep up their fire, which has never yet been extinguished. The labour, watchfulness, and exposure to heat, consequent on this practice of their faith, is fast reducing this remnant of the Montezuma race; and a few years will, in all probability, see the last of this interesting people."
The Indians in general, Mr Emory states, were delighted to exchange Mexican for American masters. The day after his arrival at Santa Fé, the chiefs of the large and formidable tribe of the Pueblo Indians came to give in their joyful adhesion to the invaders. These Indians are some of the best and most peaceable inhabitants of New Mexico. Very soon after the Spanish conquest they embraced the religion, manners, and customs of their masters. A tradition was long current amongst them, they told the American officers, that the white man would come from the far east and release them from Spanish bondage. From Taos and other places deputations arrived to give in their allegiance, and to ask protection from hostile Indians; and a band of Navajos, naked savage-looking fellows, also dropped in and took up their quarters with the interpreter to the expedition, just opposite Mr Emory's lodging. "They ate, drank, and slept all the time, noticing nothing but a little cinnamon-coloured naked brat that was playing in the court, which they gazed at with the eyes of gastronomes." The Navajos are a robber tribe, dwelling in holes and caverns in lofty mountains, difficult of access, westward from Santa Fé and the Rio del Norte, and descending at night into the valleys to carry off the fruit, cattle, women, and children of the Mexicans. To assail and subdue them in their strongholds is an enterprise which the Mexicans never dreamed of attempting, and which Mr Emory believed would be no easy task even for his own countrymen. Armijo, during his government of New Mexico, would not allow the inhabitants to make war on these banditti, whom he took advantage of as a means of intimidation and extortion, as a thief might avail of a savage dog. Any who offended him were pretty sure to have a visit from the Navajos. Three years after Mr Emory's expedition, a military reconnoissance was made from Santa Fé to the Navajo country, under command of Colonel Washington, governor of New Mexico. Lieutenant Simpson, of the Topographical Engineers, accompanied it, and we turn to his report (included in the second volume under notice) for some particulars of this predatory tribe and its district. The object of the expedition was to enforce compliance with a treaty made with the Navajos by a United States officer, by which they had pledged themselves to give up all Mexican captives, all murderers of Mexicans, who might be secreted amongst them, and all the Mexican stock they had driven off since the establishment of the government of the United States in that province. Several head-men of the Navajos came into camp for a talk with Colonel Washington and Mr Calhoun, (the Indian agent,) and it was agreed that on the following day the chiefs of the tribe should hold a conference with the American officers. Accordingly, at noon the next day, which was the 31st August, Narbona, the head chief of the Navajos, a man of eighty, whose portrait (that of a handsome old man, with a straight nose, a high forehead, and little or nothing of the savage in his aspect,) is given by Lieutenant Simpson, came into camp, accompanied by two other chiefs, and a colloquy was held with them through Sandoval, Navajo guide and interpreter to the expedition. The Indians agreed to the demands of the white men, who promised them protection and presents, and it was settled that another council should shortly be held at Chelly, for the arrangement of further details.
"The council breaking up, Sandoval harangued some two or three hundred Navajos, ranged before him on horseback; the object, as it occurred to me, being to explain to them the views and purposes of the government of the United States. Sandoval himself, habited in his gorgeous dress, [we could give no idea of its richness and brilliant colouring without here presenting Mr Simpson's 52d plate, a coloured print of a Navajo in full costume,] and all the Navajos as gorgeously decked in red, blue, and white, with rifle erect in hand; the spectacle was very imposing. But soon I perceived there was likely to be some more serious work than mere talking. It appears that it was ascertained very satisfactorily that there was then amongst the horses, in the possession of the Navajos present, one which belonged to a Mexican, a member of Colonel Washington's command. The colonel, particularly as the possessor of it acknowledged it to be stolen, demanded its immediate restoration. The Navajos demurred. He then told them that, unless they restored it immediately, they would be fired into. They replied that the man in whose possession the horse was had fled. Colonel Washington then directed Lieutenant Tores to seize one in reprisal. The Navajos scampered off at the top of their speed. The guard present was then ordered to fire upon them—the result of which was that their head chief, Narbona, was shot dead on the spot; and six others, as the Navajos subsequently told us, were mortally wounded. Major Peck also threw amongst them, very handsomely, much to their terror, when they were afar off and thought they could with safety relax their flight, a couple of round shot. These people evidently gave signs of being tricky and unreliable, and probably never will be chastened into perfect subjection until troops are stationed immediately amongst them."
This wholesale shooting, for so trifling a thing as a stolen horse, seems rather sharp practice; but perhaps it was judicious to intimidate the Navajos at first starting. They certainly showed no such formidable resistance as had been anticipated, three years previously, by Lieutenant Emory. The expedition continued its march, preceded by forty Pueblo Indians as an advanced guard, through a most formidable defile, which received the name of Washington Pass. The Pueblos were commanded by a chief of their own election, Owtewa by name, whose portrait, given by Mr Simpson, is more like that of some old weather-beaten Spanish guerilla-leader than of an Indian. Indeed, most of the portraits contained in these two volumes have much of the Spanish character of physiognomy, easily explicable by three centuries of license and oppression. Mariano Martinez, another Navajo chief, has the very features and expression of a Castilian or Biscayan peasant. He came into camp a few days after Narbona's death, embraced Colonel Washington, and declared his wish for peace, and his willingness to comply with the conditions of the treaty. Then, again embracing the American officers, "very impressively and with much endearment," he departed to seek and restore the captives and plunder claimed from his tribe. Fear had probably something to do with his humility and submission, for by this time the expedition was in the very heart of the Navajo country, close to the renowned cañon of Chelly. The word cañon, sometimes applied to a shallow valley, more commonly means a very deep and narrow one, or rather a ravine, enclosed between lofty escarpments. The cañon of Chelly is of the latter description, and of most remarkable configuration. It has long been celebrated in Mexico for its great depth and for the impregnable positions it affords, as well as for a strong fort it was said to contain, and which, according to Caravajal, Mr Simpson's Mexican guide, was so high as to require fifteen ladders to scale it, seven of which the said Caravajal affirmed that he, on one occasion, ascended, but was not permitted to go higher. From their camp, within five miles of Chelly, a large party of the American officers visited the cañon, which more than fulfilled their anticipations—so great was its depth, so precipitous its rocks, so beautiful and regular its stratification. Plate 48, "View of the cañon of Chelly near its head," although only a rough lithograph on a minute scale, gives an imposing idea of the gloomy depths of this natural wonder. At that spot Mr Simpson estimated it to be about eight hundred feet deep.