While we were making our fight on the Mail Company of the Southwest, as above related, Col. Joe McCibbin was attacking a company who had by the same means monopolized the main routes in the Northwest, and he was trying to expose their frauds. Though acting independently, we sympathized and sometimes consulted with each other, and became fast friends. McCibbin was a man of fine ability, had been a member of Congress from California and in 1856 had been the second to Senator David C. Broderick of that State in the duel with Judge David S. Terry, in which the brilliant Senator was killed. McCibbin bore a striking resemblance to and in his manner was much like my friend, the elder Dr. Samaniego of Juarez. His fight was not concluded when we left Washington, and on my return a year or two later I asked him how it had terminated. He replied: “Oh, I am on the inside. I am the attorney for the Mail Company and am well paid for my services. You and Zabriskie had better get in. You can easily do so, and it don’t pay to fight other people’s battles. You get neither money nor thanks.”
McCibbin then told me that the Mail Company had paid him $20,000 in cash to stop the fight, and were then paying him $10,000 per year as their Washington attorney. I would not state what McCibbin told me had he not later on made the same statement under oath to a committee of Congress and boldly defended his conduct. Did he do wrong? I don’t know. His was a free lance. I sometimes envy the happy ignorance of those who tell me that they always know exactly what is right and wrong.
Yes, Zabriskie and I could have “got in,” but we did not.
VICTORIO, THE GREAT APACHE GENERAL.
I could fill a book larger than the one I am writing with true stories of Indian raids and fights and massacres and captivities on this frontier, but I refrain.
In my war story I gave an account of one of the most desperate fights, where one who was kin of mine died, fighting bravely but hopelessly, and I will briefly mention here that final “round up” of the hostile savages of this section, the capture of Victorio and his band by the combined troops of our country and Mexico, within forty miles of El Paso, just twenty years ago. I give here an extract from a letter I wrote from El Paso to Mrs. Mills at Austin, dated September 24th, 1880, as follows: “If I had of late jumbled my accounts of Indians and war and politics and killings and adventures and anecdotes all into one letter I might have written one that would have interested all the good people at Fair Oaks, ‘Chicos y Grandes.’ I wrote you from Fort Davis that the Indians were gone. They were gone to the Candelerio Mountains, forty miles south of Quitman, and they are there yet. Since then they have stolen two herds of cattle from Dr. Samaniego, fifty miles from El Paso, killing the herders. Yesterday a small band crossed the river at the Canutilla, sixteen miles above here. Three days ago our troops and friendly Indians crossed here into the land of God and Liberty to concentrate with other forces who crossed below and above, to make a combined attack on Victorio today. But the wiley chief may not be there. Considering the number of his braves, he is the greatest commander, white or red, who ever roamed these plains. For more than a year he has out-manoeuvered our officers with six times his number and all the appurtenances of war, and when he has not out-generaled them he has whipped them. In sober truth, he is the veriest devil ‘that ere clutched fingers in a captive’s hair.’”
(I regret that neither at the War Department at Washington nor elsewhere have I been able to obtain an official account of the defeat of Victorio’s band. The fight took place at Tres Castillas, southeast of El Paso. Only the Mexican soldiers happened to be in at the death, although our troops rendered valuable assistance on both sides of the boundary line in getting Victorio into a position where he was forced to fight either our troops or the Mexicans. Victorio and a hundred warriors were killed on the field and as many Indians were made prisoners. Col. Juaquin Terrazas of Chihuahua, a brave and skillful Indian fighter, commanded the Mexican troops.)
